Japanese police have found seven young people dead in a van outside Tokyo in what is believed to be the country's biggest-ever group suicide.

Police said that the four men and three women, who were found in a deserted mountain lot in Minano, near Tokyo, met and arranged the suicide over the internet.

Four charcoal stoves were found in the in the van, the windows of which were sealed from the inside. A woman was sat in the driver's seat, while the six others sat in two rows behind her. The van was wrapped in blue plastic sheets and no external wounds or signs of a struggle were found.

"We believe they all died after inhaling carbon monoxide from the charcoal," a police spokesman said. "We believe they got acquainted through the internet," he added.

Authorities found the rented van after a friend of one of the seven who had received an e-mail hinting at suicide called the police.

Suicide is not unusual in Japan: last year a record 32,000 people took their own lives, one of the highest rates in the world. But the recent spate of internet suicides has shocked and fascinated the nation.

According to the Japanese authorities, 45 people have committed suicide in groups after meeting over the internet since January 2003.

There are several suicide sites on the internet. They are often designed with an ominous, pitch-black background and contain chat rooms where members exchange ideas on how best to take their own lives.

Some sites offer "shopping lists", detailing materials necessary for self-asphyxiation as well as ready-made packages available for a price.

The spate of internet-linked group suicides have led to calls for the Japanese Government to close suicide message boards down, but experts say the problem lies more with a lack of suicide prevention efforts, not with people discussing death over the internet.

Shinji Shimizu, a professor at Nara Women's University, said group suicides could be on the rise because young Japanese are not exposed to death as much as in previous generations as fewer relatives die around them.

"Young people today don't have a sense of reality about death," Ms Shimizu said. "They are approaching it as an extension of a game in cyberworld," she added.

Officials have blamed the country's decade-long economic slump for the record number of people killing themselves. Younger people have cited concerns about bullying, romantic break-ups or abusive family members for wanting to kill themselves.

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