The families of those on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have launched efforts to raise at least $US15 million ($A19.75 million) to fund a private search as they mark the third anniversary of the plane's disappearance.

The nearly three-year search in the southern Indian Ocean was suspended on January 17 with no trace of the plane, which disappeared March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Jacquita Gomes, whose husband was a flight attendant on the plane, said on Saturday families have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.

She said Flight 370 "should not go down in history books as a mystery".

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said a final report on the plane's disappearance will be released this year.