Pakistan's government later decided to release Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on parole to attend the funeral.

"We have just received a request from the family, and, God willing, we will be granting parole," Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told Reuters. He said the former prime minister and his daughter would be freed for 12 hours on the day of the funeral and burial, which is likely to take place in three to four days after the body is flown back home from London.

Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif, 68, died after months in a coma. She was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, barely a month after Nawaz Sharif was removed from office by the Supreme Court, which ordered him to face trial in an anti-corruption court.

"The wife of Mian Nawaz Sharif is no more among us. May God rest her in peace," Shehbaz Sharif, the former prime minister's brother, said on Twitter.

New Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a statement offering condolences, and said the government "as per law" would provide assistance to the family.

"She was a courageous woman of great dignity and confronted her disease with fortitude," Khan said on Twitter.

Nawaz Sharif was in London with Kulsoom earlier this year when the anti-graft court handed him a 10-year jail term and sentenced his presumed political heir, Maryam, to seven years in prison over the purchase of luxury flats in London in the 1990s.