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Thousands of Toyotas and Nissans in the UK will be subject to a massive recall by the two Japanese car makers, after a fault was detected in some models' airbags.

The safety devices, manufactured by Japanese car parts maker Takata, may suffer from faulty inflators. It has been stressed by both Nissan and Toyota that the recall is only for "investigative purposes".

However, there have been six deaths linked to the faulty Takata airbags, all in Honda cars. Five fatalities took place in the USA and one in Malaysia.

In total, 6.5 million vehicles are to be recalled, of which the vast majority are Toyotas – at just under 5 million.

Nissan is set to recall approximately 1.56 million cars.

Across Europe, it is thought that around 1.27 million Toyotas will be affected by the recall, including as many as 125,000 in the UK.

995,000 of the Toyota recalls relate to passenger-side airbags on cars manufactured between March 2003 and March 2007.

Models affected are the Yaris, Corolla, MPV six-seater Picnic, Avensis and Verso.

271,000 cars built between July 2003 and December 2005 are also affected due to issues with driver-side airbags. The Rav 4, Yaris and Hilux pick-up truck are affected.

100,263 Nissans are affected by the recall, affecting Navara pick up, Tino , Patrol, Almera, Terrano II and X-Trail models made between 2004 and 2007.

The companies said they will replace the inflators free of charge. Nissan will notify customers in June.

Since 2008 there have been 25 million vehicle recalls relating to Takata airbag faults by 10 car manufacturers.