Nearly 98,000 cars have been recalled by Toyota Australia due to concerns over the safety of seat belts.

RAV4 vehicles built between August 2005 and November 2012 may contain defective seatbelts in the back seats.

The call from the Australian arm of Toyota comes after parent company Toyota Motor Corporation announced a global recall of 2.87 million vehicles built between July 2014 and January 2016.

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It is feared the seat belts could be damaged by a metal seat-frame in the event of a front on crash and thus fail to restrain the occupant, “which could increase the risk of injury”, the company said in a statement.

A 2009 Toyota RAV4, one of the vehicles recalled. Photo: Getty

The carmaker said it would add resin covers to the metal seat-cushion frames on all affected vehicles to prevent any metal pieces from cutting the seatbelt in the event of a crash.

The recall came after Toyota had received two reports in which rear seat belts “separated” following crashes.

It could not determine whether these incidents were linked to any injuries or fatalities.

The repairs will begin in June and are expected to take one hour per vehicle.

The recall also included a staggering 1.3 million vehicles in North America – announced earlier in the day by Toyota United States – with a further 625,000 vehicles in Europe, 434,000 in China, 177,000 in Japan and 307,000 elsewhere.

– with AAP