Japan's Finance Ministry has acknowledged that its Financial Bureau asked the ultranationalist educator at the centre of a sweetheart land deal to lie about why it enjoyed a massive discount on the purchase of state land.

Moritomo Gakuen, which had ties with Mr Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie, bought the land at just one-seventh of its appraised value - purportedly over the huge clean-up costs incurred to replace contaminated soil on the site.