Queensland police say a woman's body found "wrapped in a cloth" and sealed in a metal box on the verandah of a Brisbane waterside apartment was there "more than a week".
On Tuesday afternoon, police said a postmortem examination had established "the body is that of a female of Asian ethnicity".
Legal confirmation of the woman's identity might be days or weeks away, police said.
"However, distinctive jewellery located on the body has been positively identified by the family as belonging to 30-year-old Qiong Yan, a Chinese national," the police statement said.
Police have spoken to Ms Yan's mother.
Ms Yan was reported to New South Wales police as a missing person on April 12.
Speaking earlier in the day at a press conference, Detective Inspector Tim Trezise said police discovered the body on the balcony of the unit at the Newport Hamilton Apartment block on Monday afternoon.
"The body was located inside a large metal box," he said.
"The box was sealed and [the body] was wrapped in a cloth.
He said when police opened the metal box, they discovered a badly decomposed body.
Police were conducting a search of the apartment following a missing person report made in New South Wales "some weeks ago" in relation to a 30-year-old woman, who is a foreign national.
Inspector Trezise said the body was there "more than a week".
Inspector Trezise said NSW police commenced investigations and it was established the missing woman had potentially lived in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
"The missing person's mother became concerned because contact had ceased with the daughter," he said.
Man arrested in Sydney
Yang Zhao, 26, who was a flatmate of the missing woman, was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Mascot overnight.
Queensland police have issued a warrant for one count of murder and sought Mr Zhao's extradition.
The matter was mentioned briefly in Sutherland Local Court on Tuesday morning and was adjourned to Wednesday in anticipation of extradition proceedings.
Inspector Trezise said the man was also a foreign national and the lessee of the Hamilton apartment.
The man had been residing in NSW but was still paying rent in Queensland.
Inspector Trezise said he told police "I think she's moved interstate".
Gayle Burgess, a resident of the Hamilton complex, said she, "didn't sleep much last night."
She said she was met with police searching the area returning home yesterday afternoon.
"We had two lots of special police come through … to our apartment.
"[They wanted to] show some photos and ask who they were – if we'd seen them lately."
