Prosecutors in Turkey are seeking life in jail for a father and grandfather accused of burying a girl alive for befriending boys, judicial sources say.

The pair were arrested after Medine Memi's body was found by police in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Turkey.

A post mortem revealed the girl had a significant amount of soil in her lungs and stomach, meaning that she was buried alive, forensic experts said.

The girl was discovered in Kahta town, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman, 40 days after she went missing.

The girl's father Ayhan Memi, 40, and grandfather Fethi Memi, 65, have refused to talk to investigators and prosecutors since their arrest in early December in the Kurdish town.

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A judicial source told AFP they would likely face a charge of "premeditated homicide with aggravating circumstances, perpetrated with cruelty" being drawn up by prosecutors.

Turkish law demands life in prison if convicted of those charges.

So-called honour killings - when a family member is called on to kill a female relative considered to have sullied their honour - claim many victims every year despite attempts by the government and associations to halt them.

Surveys show such crimes still enjoy some measure of tolerance in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, where they are most prevalent.