Authorities have confirmed that nine British nationals are among almost 300 people who died when a passenger plane was understood to have been shot down over Ukraine.
Schiphol Airport boss Jos Nijhuis confirmed the nationality of those on-board the MH17 Malaysian Airlines flight during a press conference in Amsterdam.
Malaysia's prime minister said the jetliner did not make any distress call before it went down in Ukraine, and that the flight route was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Prime Minister Najib Razak said although Ukrainian authorities believe the Boeing 777 was shot down, he was unable to verify "the cause of this tragedy but we must, and we will, find out precisely what happened to this flight".
The Boeing 777-200 travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur – was in transit over the war-torn region when it disappeared from radar screens.
The Foreign Office has not yet confirmed numbers or names of Britons who were on the flight manifest.
Graphic images showed a pall of smoke, charred wreckage and bodies at the crash scene in eastern Ukraine.
Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "shocked and saddened" by the tragedy, while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described it as a "terrorist act".
Mr Cameron added that officials from across Whitehall are meeting to establish the facts, while a spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We are aware of the reports and are urgently working to establish what has happened."
Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, said: "I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation."
The jet would have been flying at high altitude on an intercontinental flight that took it over the region.
As the drama unfolded, several other passenger jets were flying through Ukrainian airspace on one of the main routes from Europe to Asia for air traffic.
