WELLINGTON--The search for 29 fishermen missing in the Pacific Ocean for at least two weeks switched Sunday to remote islands with no modern means of communication after extensive air sweeps proved fruitless, officials said.

Aerial searches have covered a vast 54,000 square kilometres (21,000 square miles) since the burnt out hulk of the Taiwanese fishing boat Ta Ching 21 was found abandoned near the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati on November 9.

The Ta Ching was crewed by Taiwanese, Chinese, Filipino and Indonesian fishermen.

"There is no sign of anything", New Zealand Rescue Coordination Centre spokesman Ross Henderson said after a New Zealand Air Force Orion completed more than 30 hours of searching the area.

The last radio transmission from the vessel was a satellite phone call from the captain to his wife in Taiwan on October 28.

Henderson said Fiji, which is coordinating the search, was now sending officials to islands north of Kiribati, sparsely inhabited by indigenous tribes with no modern means of communication, to see if any of the crew had come ashore.

The New Zealand Air Force Orion would remain on standby and captain Mike Pearson said they would liaise with the search controllers in Fiji to determine the plan from this point on.

"We have made a thorough and complete check of the search area, unfortunately without success," he said.

"Without more information coming to hand or possible sightings being made known to us we are not left with too many more options at this stage."

When it was found three life rafts and a rescue boat were missing, suggesting the crew were able to abandon ship.