United States President Barack Obama's visit to Malaysia, scheduled for later next month, is still on despite the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

However, Obama's dates and itinerary have not been finalised, the press attache at the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Harvey Sernovitz, said today.

“As the White House stated last month, the president will travel to Malaysia as part of a four-country trip to Asia in late April. The exact dates and schedule are not available at this time,” Sernovitz said in a brief response.

Obama is scheduled to visit Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Philippines in late April.

Sernovitz said this when asked about the possibility of President Obama postponing his visit following the circumstances surrounding the missing Boeing 777-200, which was en route to Beijing from the KL International Airport on March 8.

Search into its 10th day

There has been much speculation that the missing MAS aircraft, with some saying it had been hijacked.

The search for the plane, now in its 10th day, is concentrated on the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean, and in several countries to the north of Asia, up to Kazakhstan.

The US is assisting in the search and rescue operation. It has two vessels, the USS Pinckne y and USS Kidd , assisting in the operations.

Three US citizens were on the missing plane - IBM executive Phil Wood, Nicole Meng, aged four and Yan Zhang, aged two.

Obama was scheduled to make his visit to Malaysia on Oct 11 last year, but it was postponed following the shutdown of the republic's administrative operations after a stalemate in the US Congress.

He was represented by Secretary of State John Kerry at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2013.