KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Reports suggest that US authorities are now leaning towards the possibility that the disappearance of flight MH370 might have been caused by a mid-air explosion.

It is understood that Interpol officers may be invited to help with investigations as US officials review possible terror links in connection with a missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plane, a US federal law enforcement official was quoted by USA Today as saying yesterday.

The unnamed official said there has been no immediate determination of what caused the plane to lose contact, adding it would likely take some time to reach any conclusions because of the lack of evidence.

He added that authorities have been reviewing the passenger manifest list and crosschecking the names with their international colleagues.

Speculation of a terror connection is also brewing in China, according to reports from local media.

The news comes as Italian and Austrian officials said two people listed as passengers on the flight turned out not to be on the plane, and had reported their passports stolen in Thailand.

In an earlier USA Today report, an aviation lawyer, who had worked on cases with problems similar to the MAS incident, was quoted as saying that the lack of warnings about a problem aboard the aircraft suggested a catastrophic failure while flying at altitude.

Steve Marks, a partner at Podhurst Orseck law firm in Miami, represented relatives of victims in the SilkAir crash in December 1997 and the Air France crash in the Atlantic in June 2009.

He speculated that the catastrophic failure was due to the plane breaking up, from a lack of pressurisation or from a complete electrical failure.

MAS confirmed early yesterday morning that MH370 lost contact with the Subang Air Traffic Control at about 2.40am, some two hours after the flight left from KLIA.

It was later clarified that the plane disappeared from the radar screen even earlier at 1.30am, when the plane was hovering about 120 nautical miles off Kota Baru.

The Beijing-bound aircraft was carrying 239 passengers onboard, including 12 crew members and two infants.