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Experts have begun the long process of identifying the recovered bodies of victims aboard Malaysia Airlines MH17.

DNA samples have been taken from relatives and these will be used to help identify the remains of the passengers on board the flight.

But it could be weeks or even months before all the bodies have been identified, while contention remains on how many passengers are still missing.

Experts will soon begin analysing the remains of the MH17 victims (pictured at crash site). Aircraft containing the bodies have begun leaving Ukraine's Kharkiv today. However contention still remains on how many bodies remain at the crash site. Officials say as many as a third of passengers may be unaccounted for

The first set of bodies are due to arrive in the Netherlands today, six days after the plane crashed.

To identify a body, tissue with the least amount of DNA degradation like deep muscle from the torso is preferred, but in the absence of that, forensic scientists can use dental records.

DNA from these samples will then be cross-checked against reference samples, the antemortem data, from victim's homes such as toothbrushes or combs.

Experts can also use swabs from close family members who share half of the victim's DNA, such as a parent or child, to make the identification.

But despite being left out in the wind and rain for days, one expert told the MailOnline it should not be too difficult identifying the remains.

'It's a standard mass disaster approach,' said Professor Jamison, Director of the Forensic Institute.

'It's not very difficult to identify the bodies, there are various techniques. DNA can last long a time; just think of DNA from mummies.

'One of the things they're trying to do is to get separate parts together, and that should be relatively easy.

'You would have to have complete destruction before you couldn't do standard DNA profiling.

'Even badly burned bodies can be identified.'

'Let's assume you've got four pieces of tissue across the site; all you do is swab it and all you do is catalogue it. I don't see a difficulty at all.'

However, another expert, Professor Woodford, director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM), told the Guardian that there could be some challenges with identifying the dead in such circumstances.

'I imagine the bodies in this disaster will be in various states of intactness; some will be severely traumatised,' he said.

'Fire is very destructive to bodies, of course, and there's also the trauma caused by the plane crash.'

'This one will be a bit different to some other cases because we have a passenger manifest, so we have a known population of people to identify, ignoring the possibility of people killed on the ground, of course.'

The first set of bodies are due to arrive in the Netherlands today, six days after the plane crashed. But despite being left out in the wind and rain for days, experts say it should not be too difficult identifying the remains. Pictured is a Dutch C130 aircraft carrying 16 bodies leaving Ukraine soil bound for the Netherlands

But despite confidence in identifying the recovered bodies, relatives still face the anguish of waiting to find out if their loved ones are among the passengers found so far.

The Boeing 777-200 was shot down last week in eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all passengers and crew on board.

Dutch officials have claimed that as many as a third of the passengers could still be missing.

This is counter to claims from pro-Russian rebels that they have found 282 of the 298 bodies, and 87 body parts from the remaining 16 people.

More than 150 Dutch forensic experts are collecting DNA from close family, a similar identification process used following the 2010 Libya crash.

On that occasion it took about 30 days to identify the bodies of the 103 people killed when Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crash on approach to Tripoli International Airport due to a pilot error - with a nine-year-old Dutch boy the only survivor.

Yesterday, international forensic experts were finally allowed to board the refrigerated train housing the bodies, which arrived in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Five refrigerated wagons containing 200 body bags reached Kharkiv on Tuesday after pro-Russian separatists agreed to hand over the plane's black boxes to Malaysian authorities, and the bodies to the Netherlands, where many victims had lived.

After carrying out a body count, forensic experts found the number to be 'significantly less' than the figure claimed by separatist leader Alexander Borodai.

The head of the Dutch team leading the investigation, Jain Tuinder, said he estimated just 200 bodies had arrived in Kharkiv as well as a number of unidentified body parts.

Mr Tuinder vowed to recover the others, saying: 'They will be found. We have to find them.

'We will not leave until every remain has left this country so we will have to go on and bargain again with the people over there.'

A coffin containing the body of a victim of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is loaded onto a plane for transport to the Netherlands during a departure ceremony today in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed killing all 298 on board

The train's 185-mile (300km) journey from the crash site in the rebel-held village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, took 17 hours.

Last night an Australian air force plane and refrigerated trucks arrived in Holland to wait for the MH17 victims.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the first bodies would be flown to Eindhoven in the south of the country today to carry out the identification process he warned could take months.

'Preparations will be made in Kharkiv so that identification can be done in the Netherlands as well as possible,' Mr Rutte said.

'As soon as a victim is identified, first and foremost, the family will be informed and no one else. That can take weeks or months.'

According to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, there are still human remains lying on the crash site.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it was still unclear how many bodies had arrived in Kharkiv and how many may have been left behind.

Abbott said that based on an initial inspection of the remains in the train carriages, that it was unclear how many bodies may still be left behind in rebel-held territory.

'Based on early inspection of the trains in Kharkiv, we just don't know how many bodies we have,' Abbott told reporters.

'It's quite possible that many bodies are still out there in the open, in the European summer, subject to interference and subject to the ravages of heat and animals. That is the predicament in which we find ourselves.'

UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond said all the evidence currently available indicates that a surface-to-air missile destroyed the MH17 and was supplied by Russia