File photo: AFP

Japan will quarantine all passengers arriving from China and South Korea, the country's prime minister said Thursday, as the government ramps up measures to contain an outbreak of the new coronavirus.

"We will strengthen immigration quarantines on people from the two countries," Shinzo Abe told a cabinet-level taskforce meeting on the virus.

"We will ask them to stay in designated areas for two weeks and not to use public transport," Abe added, saying the measures would come into force from March 9.