Parents of a seven-year-old boy, missing in the mountains of northern Japan, have admitted that they left him alone in the woods as punishment.

Yamato Tanooka has not been seen for two days, since his parents abandoned him in the mountains on the Hokkaido, home to wild bears.

The couple first told police he got lost foraging for vegetables but they later confessed they had left him alone to punish him, and when they returned he had gone.

Hundreds of emergency service workers are still combing the area in search of the boy.