China Deploys 10 Satellites to Help Air-And-Sea Search

About two-thirds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew, now presumed to have died aboard the plane, were Chinese.

China has urged Malaysia to speed up efforts to find the aircraft and if the loss is confirmed it will be China's second-worst air disaster.

The high-resolution satellites, which are controlled from the Xian Satellite Control Centre in northern China, will be used for navigation, weather monitoring, communications and other aspects of the search-and-rescue, ABC reported.

Crews from nine countries have joined the international search effort, including China, Malaysia, Australia, the United States, Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Experts remain mystified as to what caused the plane to suddenly disappear from radar.

Neither Malaysia's Special Branch - the agency leading the investigation locally - nor spy agencies in the United States and Europe have ruled out the possibility that militants may have been involved in downing the flight.

But Malaysian authorities have indicated the evidence so far does not strongly back an attack as a cause for the aircraft's disappearance, and that mechanical or pilot problems could have led to the apparent crash, US sources say.

"There is no evidence to suggest an act of terror," said a European security source, who added that there was also "no explanation what's happened to it or where it is."

Thai police say two men who used stolen passports to board the missing plane were more likely to be asylum seekers, than terrorists.