Six experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency boarded a Tokyo-bound flight from Vienna at around midday on Sunday in preparation for a fact-finding mission from May 24-June 2.

Jim Lyons, director of the IAEA's division of nuclear installation safety, told reporters the mission would compile a report which would then be presented to IAEA member states next month at a special ministerial-level conference in Vienna.

Lyons said it was not yet clear exactly where the team of experts would go or whether they would get to the nuclear plant at Fukushima which was critically damaged by a devastating tsunami on March 11.

"We are going to be mostly in Tokyo, but I think we're going to try to visit the site," Lyons said. "That's the plan."

Asked which other sites the experts would visit, he replied: "I don't know. There are a lot of negotiations going on to determine where we can go."

The IAEA announced last week the mission, headed by Mike Weightman, chief inspector of nuclear installations in Britain, would comprise 20 experts from 12 different countries.

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