MH17 Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai will head for Kiev, Ukraine tonight, to facilitate the Malaysian special investigaton team to gain access to the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17.

"We have already despatched the team last night to Kiev. I will leave Kuala Lumpur tonight to ensure we have access to the place (crash site)," he told reporters before a closed-door meeting with Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein at Sama-Sama Hotel in Sepang today.

Asked to comment on the aircraft's black box which was rumoured to have been taken out of the crash site, Liow said it was still unconfirmed news and needed to be verified.

The team with 131 personnel, including a 24-man Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Smart) and police forensic officers arrived in Kiev early Saturday morning.

The team, headed by Khairil Hilmi Mokhtar, who is the National Security Council Cross Border Management Division principal assistant secretary, is expected to be there until Friday.

MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it went down in Ukraine. It was carrying 298 people - 283 passengers and 15 crew.

The ill-fated flight left Amsterdam at 12.15pm (Netherlands time) Thursday and was to have arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 6.10am (Malaysian time) Friday.

Site should not be tampered with

Meanwhile, Hishammuddin said Malaysia's main priority was to get to the crash site and ensure the investigation team was accorded proper security, and the debris of the aircraft at the site was not tampered with.

"It's important to have a thorough, complete and transparent investigation into what really happened, and to do that, we need cooperation from all international bodies," he said.

Answering a question on the incident, he said at this moment, the Malaysian authorities were not in a position to comment on the matter since they did not have all the facts on what actually transpired.

"Until all the facts have been verified, whether the plane was really brought down, how it was brought down and who brought it down, can the (Malaysian) government be able to comment on the incident," added Hishammuddin.

- Bernama