Missing Malaysia flight: Probe into why FIVE passengers checked in but never boarded as searchers say they have found no wreckage, no signals and no clues

• Search teams still unable to find trace of missing Malaysia Airlines plane
  
• Singaporean submarine MV Swift Rescue called in to assist in search
  
• Interpol investigating whether up to four passengers had stolen passports
• Five passengers also checked on to flight but did not board plane
  
• U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft capable of covering 1,500 sq miles every hour was sweeping the northern part of the Strait of Malacca today
• China urges Malaysia to step up search as it also sends rescue teams
  

By JAMES RUSH

PUBLISHED: 08:04 GMT, 10 March 2014 | UPDATED: 11:09 GMT, 10 March 2014

Five passengers checked in to the Malaysian Airlines flight which has gone missing but never boarded the plane, investigators said today.

The disclosure came as the search was stepped up for debris and clues in the sea around Malaysia where the Boeing 777 vanished early Saturday morning.

But Malaysia's civil aviation chief said today that the search had failed to find anything and that a sighting of a yellow object, which was earlier suspected to have been a life raft, was found to be a false alarm.

As Interpol investigates whether up to four passengers boarded the plane using stolen passports, it was today revealed five passengers checked on to the flight but did not board the plane. Their baggage was removed before it departed, he said.

The Boeing 777 went missing early on Saturday morning on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman described the disappearance of the plane as an 'unprecedented aviation mystery'.

He said a hijacking could not be ruled out as investigators explore all theories for the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 en route to Beijing.

'Unfortunately we have not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft,' he told a news conference.

'As far as we are concerned, we have to find the aircraft, we have to find a piece of the aircraft if possible.'

As dozens of ships and aircraft from seven countries scour the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam, questions mounted over possible security lapses and whether a bomb or hijacking could have brought down the Boeing airliner.

It comes as Interpol criticised Thailand's lax airport security after it emerged at least two passengers' passports were stolen.

The possibility of a further two stolen passports used on the same flight is now being investigated after it emerged that no cross checks were carried out against Interpol's lost and stolen database.

Procedural checks would have revealed that at least two passengers were travelling on stolen passports stolen.

Malaysian authorities now believe they have CCTV images of the two men using the stolen passports to board the flights.

The images have been circulated across international intelligence agencies and will be cross-referenced with facial recognition software.

The passports were used to buy tickets booked in the names of Italian Luigi Maraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel on March 6, 2014, and issued in the Thai city of Pattaya, a popular beach resort south of the capital Bangkok.

Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early hours of Saturday, about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur, after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 ft (10,670 metres).

A Vietnamese navy plane reported seeing what could have been a piece of the aircraft as darkness fell across the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea on Sunday, but ships and aircraft returning in daylight have so far found nothing.

Underlining the lack of hard information about the plane's fate, a U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft capable of covering 1,500 sq miles every hour was sweeping the northern part of the Strait of Malacca on Monday, on the other side of the Malay peninsula from where the last contact with MH370 was made.

FULL STORY: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2577185/Alive-Helicopters-s...