Opposition politician Azmin Ali has extended his 24-hour deadline to seven days for the government to respond to his allegation that ailing national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has a former Israeli intelligence officer on its payroll.

On Saturday, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat vice-president gave Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his deputy Najib Abdul Razak and Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy 24 hours to respond to his allegation, which Azmin said he has documentary proof.

Najib, who is also the defence minister, was quoted in the Chinese dailies today as saying he was unaware of the allegation but promised a probe into Azmin's allegation. The PM and Chan meanwhile have yet to respond on the matter.

"I welcome the deputy premier's response to investigate the issue. I would like to give him seven days to investigate. He as the defence minister should have the details as the matter involves national security. There should be no cover up," Azmin said when contacted today.

"If the deputy premier fails to make public his findings within seven days from yesterday, I will make it (the documents) public," he added.

He reiterated that the alleged appointment of the ex-Israeli intelligence officer involved national security and this was unacceptable, especially given that Malaysia has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

MAS: No comment

Meanwhile, an official from MAS told malaysiakini that the national carrier "was unable to comment" on the allegation made by Azmin. The company has failed to respond to a malaysiakini's e-mail query yesterday on the matter.

According to Azmin, the ex-Israeli agent had been hired as a consultant by the financially-troubled carrier for its IT department.

He also claimed the company had hired two additional foreign consultants and two architects when computer giant IBM was already outsourced by the company to do the tasks.

The opposition leader said MAS hired an Australian consultant on Sept 5 for its IT department, who was paid RM4,400 per day, while another IT consultant from Singapore was pocketing RM825,000 per annum.

Apart from this, he added that the airlines had also employed an architectural manager and enterprise architect who were being paid RM180,000 and RM204,000 per year respectively.

MAS was also said to have paid RM298,202 to a recruitment agency to head-hunt for the Singaporean and two architects.

The airlines was in the spotlight recently over the purchase of three paintings worth RM1.55 million. The company however had defended its decision as a "corporate investment".