The six-time Paralympic Games gold medallist has been eligible for parole since July but has remained in prison because a meeting between him and Steenkamp's father and mother has yet to be arranged, lawyers for both parties told the Associated Press.

Pistorius was sentenced to 13 years and five months after shooting Steenkamp, a model, multiple times through a bathroom door in his home on Valentine's Day in February 2013.

Under South African law, he became eligible for parole after serving half his sentence.

Associated Press reported that a hearing for the 34-year-old Pistorius was scheduled for last month and then cancelled because a meeting between him and Barry and June Steenkamp had not been organised.

South African Corrections Department officials scheduled the parole hearing, but it was called off when a full report on Pistorius' time in prison was not available, Pistorius' lawyer Julian Knight revealed.

The Steenkamps have asked for a face-to-face meeting with Pistorius before he is considered for early release from Atteridgeville Correctional Centre in South Africa's capital Pretoria, as is their right under South Africa's victim-offender dialogue policy.

They have previously revealed that they want to challenge Pistorius on why he shot their daughter, and they would get to do that, with victim-offender meetings aimed at achieving some kind of closure for families of victims of crimes.

"They [Barry and June] feel that Reeva has got a voice," the Steenkamps' lawyer Tania Koen told Associated Press.

"They are Reeva's voice, and they owe it to their beloved daughter."

The Steenkamps are allowed to make recommendations following their meeting with Pistorius to the South African Parole Board, although Koen did not reveal whether or not they would oppose him being set free.

Pistorius won six gold medals at the Paralympic Games from his debut at Athens 2004 to London 2012.

The sprinter nicknamed "Blade Runner" had also become the first double amputee to compete at the Olympic Games, when he was a member of South Africa's 4x400 metres relay squad at London 2012.

He had been part of the 4x400m relay team that had earned silver at the World Championships in Daegu a year earlier.

Pistorius has always maintained he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder and was initially found guilty of manslaughter, before the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa overturned the ruling and convicted Pistorius of murder.

He was sentenced to six years in jail in 2016 before his prison term was increased to 13 years and five months in 2017.

Koen admitted that the Steenkamps were surprised that Pistorius was eligible for parole already, as they had believed he would not be able to leave prison until 2023.

"It opens a lot of wounds or rips off the plasters they had put on those wounds," she said.