The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said on Thursday that they did not believe the material found on a beach in Western Australia's South West was related to missing Malaysian flight MH370.

"We've carefully examined detailed photographs that were taken for us by the police, and we're satisfied that it's not a lead in terms of the search for MH370," ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan told ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio on Thursday morning.

A member of the public stumbled across the debris on a beach at Augusta, about 320 km south of Perth on Wednesday afternoon. It was then handed to Busselton police station.

Western Australian police sent photographs of the material, believed to be "metallic and about 2.5 metres long" to ATSB for examination. The photographs were also made available to the Malaysian investigation team.

"We want to pursue every possible lead that will help us find MH370 but sadly this is one that isn't going to help that search," Dolan said.

In the ABC Radio program, Dolan encouraged people to continue coming forward with any discoveries that they think might related to the missing plane.

"We do encourage everyone who thinks they have viable leads in relation to the aircraft to contact the ATSB," he said.

"We want to pursue everything. There are going to be a range of cases where something that looks positive turns out not to be on closer examination."