Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has requested the media not to expose the amount of compensation for the families of passengers affected by its missing Flight MH370 aircraft due to potential security threats.

Its senior vice-president for strategic communication Najmuddin Abdullah in a statement here today, said apart from MAS, the family members had also made such request.

"Malaysia Airlines did not disclose any information pertaining to the amount of compensation as picked up by the media, and we believe this was acquired from other sources," he said.

With this, MAS would like to seek media cooperation to withdraw all published articles which stated the amount of compensation for the families of the passengers.

The amount of compensation, said Najmuddin, would be made known only to the family members and done personally by MAS caregivers, adding that it was important for the media to respect their safety and privacy.

There were more than 1,000 family members under MAS' care and the airline's utmost priority was to assist them, he said.

Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crew vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport in Sepang on March 8.

- Bernama