Manila  - Philippine transport authorities suspended Tuesday the operations of a shipping company that owned a passenger ferry that sank in southern waters on the weekend, killing nine people.

Transportation Undersecretary Thompson Lantion said all the ships of Aboitiz Transport System Corp will undergo safety inspections before the company could be allowed to resume operations.

On Sunday, an Aboitiz passenger ship, the Superferry 9, sank off Siocon town in Zamboanga del Norte province, 810 kilometres south of Manila, several hours after listing dangerously.

Lantion said the suspension order was issued Monday but could not be served because it was a holiday.

"When we conduct this inspection, automatically they cannot do their usual travel," he said.

Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant Armand Balilo said all the passengers of the ill-fated ferry have been accounted for, with 959 people rescued.

The last survivor was found on Monday bobbing in waters off Siocon for more than 24 hours, while one person thought to be still missing was found in one of the ships that rescued passengers, he said.

The ferry was carrying 847 passengers, 117 crew members and four sea marshals when the accident occurred.

The coast guard and the Maritime Industry Authority would conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the accident, but initial reports said the ship's generator malfunctioned.

There were also reports that there was a hole in the ship's steel hull.

Three coast guard vessels were dispatched to the area near the sunken ship to monitor any oil leakage.

Sea travel is a major mode of transportation in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands.

In June 2008, a passenger ferry sank off the central Philippines at the height of Typhon Fengshen, drowning more than 800 passengers.

The country was the site of the world's worst peacetime shipping disaster in 1987, when more than 4,000 people perished in a collision between the ferry Dona Paz and an oil tanker off the central island of Mindoro just before Christmas. (dpa)