Radar signals show that a Malaysia Airlines
plane missing for more than 24 hours may have turned back, Malaysian officials
have said.
Rescue teams looking for the plane have now
widened their search area.
Investigators are also checking CCTV
footage of two passengers who are believed to have boarded the plane using
stolen passports.
Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
disappeared south of Vietnam with 239 people on board.
Air and sea rescue teams have been
searching an area of the South China Sea south of Vietnam for more than 30
hours, but there have been no definite sightings of wreckage.
Late on Sunday, the Vietnamese authorities
said a navy aircraft had spotted "an object" suspected of belonging
to the missing plane, but officials said it was too dark to be certain.
The object is thought to be near a
potential oil slick that was spotted on Saturday, but again officials have
urged that this may be nothing to do with flight MH370.
Malaysia's civil aviation chief, Azharuddin
Abdul Rahman, told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur that the search area had
been expanded to include the west coast of Malaysia.
Five passengers booked on the flight did
not board, he added. Their luggage was consequently removed.
There are now 40 ships and 34 aircraft from
nine different nationalities taking part in the search. But no signal has been
received from the plane's emergency locator transmitter, Malaysian aviation
authorities say.
Air force chief Rodzali Daud said the
investigation was now focusing on a recording of radar signals that showed
there was a "possibility" the aircraft had turned back from its
flight path.
Fake
passports
The BBC has confirmed that a man falsely
using an Italian passport and a man falsely using an Austrian passport
purchased tickets at the same time, and were both booked on the same onward
flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday.
Both had purchased their tickets from China
Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines, and they had
consecutive ticket numbers.
The real owners had their passports stolen
in Thailand in recent years.
The international police agency Interpol
confirmed that at least two passports recorded as lost or stolen in its
database were used by passengers on the flight - and that no checks of its
database had been made for either passport between the time they were stolen
and the departure of the flight.
"Whilst it is too soon to speculate
about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it
is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an
international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol databases,"
the agency's Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement.
He expressed frustration that few of
Interpol's 190 member countries "systematically" search the database.
Malaysia's Transport Minister Hishammuddin
Hussein said international agencies including the FBI had joined the
investigation and all angles were being examined.
"Our own intelligence has been
activated and, of course, the counterterrorism units... from all the relevant
countries have been informed," he said.
"The main thing here for me and for
the families concerned is that we find the aircraft."
The passengers on the flight were of 14
different nationalities. Two-thirds were from China, while others were from
elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.
The plane vanished from radar south of
Vietnam at 17:30 GMT Friday (01:30 local time Saturday).
Malaysia Airlines had previously said it
last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east
coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.
Distraught relatives and loved ones of
those on board are being given assistance at both the arrival and departure
airports.
Many have expressed anger at the lack of
information.
"I can't understand the airline
company. They should have contacted the families first thing," a
middle-aged woman told AFP news agency at Beijing airport, after finding out
her brother-in-law was on the flight.
Texas firm Freescale Semiconductor says 20
of its Malaysian and Chinese employees were on the flight, according to astatement on its website.
Malaysia's national carrier is one of
Asia's largest, flying nearly 37,000 passengers daily to some 80 destinations
worldwide.
Correspondents say the route between Kuala
Lumpur and Beijing has become more and more popular as Malaysia and China
increase trade.
