The flame will be brought in March 2020 from Olympia in Greece, where it is traditionally lit, and be taken around Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures before travelling to the southernmost prefecture where the Torch Relay will officially begin its journey around Japan. 

Under the plans being drawn up Toky 2020 the Torch Relay will last about 115 days until the Opening Ceremony on July 24, according to a report in the Asahi Shimbun. 

The three Tōhoku region prefectures chosen for the special events were struck by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

By sending the Olympic Torch to the areas so badly affected by the disaster, it chimes with the message that Tokyo 2020  will be "the Olympic Games for reconstruction".

Negotiations are currently taking place with the International Olympic Committee, Asahi Shimbun claimed, as such events have never been held prior to a Torch Relay before.

Seven prefectures, including the three in the Tōhoku region, plus Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa and Shizuoka, which will all have at least two competition venues, are expected to be allotted three days of the Relay each.

Tokyo will likely be designated 15 days, and the remaining 39 prefectures will see the Torch passing through for two days each.

Exceptions may be made for other disaster-hit areas in Kyushu, which could be allotted more than two days each, Asahi Shimbun claimed.

Yoshirō Mori, President of Tokyo 2020, and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, head of the National Governors' Association, and other leading Japanese officials are scheduled to discuss the Torch Relay at a meeting in the Japanese capital tomorrow. 

Potential prefectures to host the start of the Torch Relay included those in the Tōhoku regions that were hit by the 2011 disaster, and Okinawa Prefecture, the starting point of the Torch Relay for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and was under U.S. sovereignty at that time.

In the end, Okinawa was chosen due to concerns over possible snowfall in the Tōhoku regions in March.