A team of experts from the U.N.'s nuclear agency has begun a week-long visit to Japan at the request of the government to help assess the safety of the country's nuclear power plants.

The 10-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived Monday in Tokyo, for meetings with Japanese officials. The experts are also scheduled to visit a nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture.

Japan has ordered nuclear plants around the country to undergo stress tests in order to gauge whether they can withstand natural disasters.

The deputy director-general for Japan's nuclear agency, Shinichi Kuroki, says the government has heard from its own experts, but wants to get additional advice from outside.

“Our evaluation has been based on the advice we have received from domestic experts, but we would like to try to achieve a higher level of safety based on the expertise available in the international arena.''

Kuroki says Japan wants to use international expertise to improve its nuclear safety.

A massive earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi plant last March, forcing 80,000 people to evacuate a 20-kilometer area around the plant northeast of Tokyo.

The government says it could take up to 40 years to clean up and fully decommission the site.