TOKYO - Police on Tuesday questioned three siblings after it was discovered they had been living with the decomposed corpse of their father for nearly a decade, an official said.

Police found the body of Kyujiro Kanaoka lying on a futon bed at the family's home in Itami city in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan, said a prefectural police spokesman, who declined to be identified.

Kanaoka's three elderly children, all in their 70s or older, told police they thought their father was still alive but that one of them recently had consulted a relative about the possibility that he might be dead, the spokesman said.