DHAKA: The first bodies recovered from the Malaysia Airlines plane which crashed in Ukraine last week are to be flown to the Netherlands for identification.

A day of mourning is being held to mark the occasion, more than five days after the aircraft was downed in a rebel-held area in eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile US intelligence officials said they believed pro-Russian rebels had shot down the jet by mistake, reports the BBC.

But no direct link to Russia itself had been found, they added.

The plane crashed in a rebel-held area after apparently being hit by a missile on 17 July killing all 298 people on board, most of whom were Dutch.

A refrigerated train carriage carrying around 200 bodies from the crash site arrived in the government-held city of Kharkiv on Tuesday.

The operation to find the remaining bodies and secure crucial evidence continues.

Russia has repeatedly said Ukrainian government forces are to blame for the attack, but the US officials said that Russian claims were ‘not plausible’.

BDST: 1007 HRS, JULY 23, 2014