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Checks into the background of Chinese citizens on board the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner have uncovered no links to terrorism, Chinese ambassador in Kuala Lumpur Huang Huikang said .
Mr Huang's remarks will dampen speculation that Uighur separatists in Xinjiang province might have been involved with the disappearance of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew early on March 8.
The plane was carrying 154 Chinese passengers, when Malaysian officials say someone on board deliberately diverted it from its route to Beijing less than an hour into the flight.
A massive search operation in the Indian Ocean and beyond has yet to find any trace of the plane.
Malaysian police are investigating the pilots and ground engineers of the plane and have asked intelligence agencies from countries with passengers on board to carry out background checks on those passengers.
Malaysian authorities say that someone on board the flight switched off two vital pieces of communication equipment, allowing the plane to fly almost undetected.
Mr Huang said that China had begun searching for the plane on its territory, while Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei explained that satellites and radar were being used.
China has previously said that there was no sign of the plane entering the country's airspace on commercial radar.
Malaysian police are investigating the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board, but they have yet to give any update on what they have uncovered.
The search for the plane is one of the largest in aviation history and now involves 26 countries.
It was initially focused on seas on either side of Malaysia, in the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
The search area has since been expanded to include the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and 11 countries to the north-west that the plane could have crossed, including China and India.
US, Australian and Indonesian planes and ships are searching waters to the south of Sumatra and China is also sending ships to the Indian Ocean, where they will scour two blocks of sea covering a total of 186,000 square miles.
