A Japanese man accused of stabbing and killing 19 patients in a facility for disabled people near Tokyo was taken from a regional jail to see prosecutors on Wednesday.

Satoshi Uematsu, 26, was sent from the town of Sagamihara, about 45km (25 miles) southwest of Tokyo, to the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office in Kanagawa prefecture.

Dozens of other residents were injured in Tuesday's attack at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility for the disabled in Sagamihara.

Uematsu, a former employee at the facility, gave himself up to police after the attack, Japan's worst massacre in decades.

He said in letters written in February that he would "obliterate 470 disabled people", Kyodo news agency reported.