China widens search for missing plane

China has sent nine ships to waters south-east of the Bay of Bengal and west of Indonesia in the desperate search for the missing Malasyian airliner.

Teams from 26 countries are trying to find flight MH370, which went missing on 8 March with 239 people on board.

The entire search area is now roughly the size of Australia.

Malaysia says the plane, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, was intentionally diverted and could have flown on either a northern or southern arc from its last known position in the Malacca Straits.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the aircraft's crew - or other individuals on the plane - were involved in its disappearance.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's top official in charge of the search for a missing jetliner rejected criticism on Tuesday from US officials that it has not been sharing as much information as it could with foreign governments.

China too has called for better coordination in the search operation and some US officials and politicians have expressed frustration at what they see as Malaysia's refusal of help.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein specifically defended coordination with the United States and China and said he had been in touch with his counterparts in both countries.

nvestigators are convinced that someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777 and commercial navigation diverted the jet, carrying 12 crew and 227 mainly Chinese passengers, perhaps thousands of miles off course.

China's ambassador to Malaysia said the country had carried out a detailed probe into its nationals aboard the flight, which vanished on March 8, and could rule out their involvement.

US and European security sources said efforts by various governments to investigate the backgrounds of everyone on the flight had not, as of Monday, turned up links to armed groups or anything else that could explain the jet's disappearance.

A European diplomat in Kuala Lumpur also said trawls through the passenger manifest had come up blank.