The demonstration was part of a worldwide rolling protest to mark the 600th rally staged by surviving South Korean "comfort women" every Wednesday for 12 years in front the Japanese embassy in Seoul, the Kyodo news agency said.

Similar rallies were also planned for the same day in other parts of Japan as well as in South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Belgium and the United States, Kyodo said.

"Even after 600 demonstrations, Japan still hasn't really solved the problem," Japanese Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima told the Tokyo rally outside the offices of the House of Councillors, according to Kyodo.

"I will do my best so that this issue can be thoroughly resolved through parliament and legislation," she said.

Fukushima could not be reached for comment and spokesmen for the House, the Social Democratic Party and local police could not confirm the report.

Historians say at least 200,000 young women, mostly Korean but also from Taiwan, China, the Philippines and Indonesia, were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels during the war.

More than 50 damages suits have been filed against the Tokyo government over the wartime sexual enslavement.

But courts have consistently refused to rule in favour of direct compensation, saying that claims on the state were settled in bilateral peace treaties after the war, and that the 1907 Hague Convention IV does not give the plaintiffs the right to seek individual compensation.

The government has avoided volunteering direct compensation for former sex slaves.

Instead, in 1995, it set up a group funded by public and private money -- the Asian Women's Fund -- to offer payouts, worth two million yendollars) per person, as well as medical and welfare support.

Former comfort women in South Korea launched the weekly protest in January 1992 when then-Japanese prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa visited Seoul.

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