Keiichi Ishii, the minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, made the remark at a regular news conference in response to a media report that inappropriate inspections at Nissan dated back at least 20 years.

The ministry said at the end of September it was giving Nissan about a month to report measures to prevent a recurrence of the issue.

(Reporting by Yoshiyasu Shida; Writing by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Stephen Coates)