Japan's biggest manufacturer of airline seats has admitted that it falsified seat safety tests.

Koito Industries says it sold about 150,000 of the suspect passenger seats to major airlines. They are installed on about 1,000 Boeing and Airbus jetliners operated by 32 airlines.

After a company employee blew the whistle, the president of Koito Industries formally apologized at a press conference in Japan, saying the company is responsible for the falsification of fire resistance data for the seats.

In order to meet surging demand for seats, Koito used a computer program that produced false readings on safety tests to meet standards for seat strength.

The company said it would begin testing all the seats with falsified testing data and fix any that are found to fall short of requirements. Airlines, regulators and plane manufacturers said the seats don't pose a safety risk.

"I am deeply sorry," Koito President Takashi Kakegawa said at a news conference on Monday, noting that the deception involved the entire department overseeing the testing and has dated back to the 1990s.

Japan's transport ministry said there is no need to ground the planes using the Koito seats.

"We have found non-compliance issues, but no safety of flight issues have been identified with these seats," Bev Holland, a Boeing spokeswoman., is quoted as saying. She said Boeing sent a team to Japan to work on-site with Koito to fix the problem.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism issued a business improvement order to the company that subjects the company to extra oversight from the government. The ministry ordered the manufacturer to retest its products to confirm their safety.

The incident came to light when a whistle-blower inside the manufacturer informed the ministry about the falsifications in June and July last year.