Malaysian ships to investigate possible life raft: official

Malaysian ships dispatched to investigate the sighting of a floating object thought to be a life raft have been called off after it was declared a false alarm.

The short-lived glimmer of hope came as crash investigators continued to hunt for a missing airliner.

News agencies including Reuters had reported Malaysian planes had sighted a yellow object which looked like a life raft and sent ships to have a closer look.

"There was a report today that we just received that an aircraft had seen something like an inverted life raft," said Malaysia's head of civil aviation, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman.

Singaporean submarine MV Swift Rescue has been called in to assist in search and 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 today.