The bodies of two Belgian climbers who went missing in the Swiss Alps 34 years ago have been recovered from the melting Trift Glacier, police said on Wednesday. Photo: AP

A hiker discovered the remains on 26 July on the glacier in southern Switzerland, near the Italian border, according to police in the canton of Valais.

The remains were taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Wallis Hospital in Sion for identification.

"A direct comparison of DNA profiles has formally established that these are two mountaineers who went missing in the Weissmies region in 1992," the statement said.

On 4 September 1992, the two men had set out from the Weissmies hut with the aim of climbing the summit of the Weissmies (4,017 metres) and got as far as the Almagell hut.

Caught out by appalling weather, they never reached their destination.

In the months that followed, several search operations were carried out, which led to the discovery of a rucksack, but not the hikers.

Wallis police keep records of people reported missing since 1925, mostly in mountainous areas and rivers.

As climate change accelerates glacier melt, retreating ice has increasingly exposed the remains of climbers who disappeared years or even decades ago.

Last year, the remains of a Swiss mountaineer who vanished in 1994 were discovered on a glacier on the Ober Gabelhorn mountain, also in Wallis.