Honda is the latest car manufacturer to announce a major extension to its recall programme over a world airbag alert, Sky News reported Thursday.

The company confirmed it was bringing in for checks almost 4.9 million more cars fitted with the airbags, which have been linked to at least five deaths worldwide.

The airbags, manufactured and supplied by Takata, have been found to have potentially fatal inflators.

The investigations revealed that moisture was able to weaken seals in the system, leaving the inflators at risk of erupting with too much force and spraying a car's interior with shards of metal.