Ten Britons have now been confirmed as being among those who died in the Malaysia Airlines aircraft which came down in strife-torn Ukraine on Thursday. Emergency workers have found 196 bodies at the site where Malaysia airliner MH17 crashed.

The Boeing 777, which was carrying 298 passengers, was on route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed on Thursday.

It fell between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk, after being reportedly hit by a missile over the rebel-held territory.

Both sides in the Ukrainian civil conflict have accused each other of shooting down the jet with a missile.

Malaysia Airlines has claimed that MH17’s flight plan was approved by Eurocontrol, defending its decision to fly over Ukrainian air space.

In a statement released today, the carrier claimed the route over where the disaster happened is often used for flights from Europe to Asia.

“A flight from a different carrier was on the same route at the time of the MH17 incident, as were a number of other flights from other carriers in the days and weeks before,” it said.

“Eurocontrol maintains records of all flights across European airspace, including those across Ukraine.”

The UK, France and Germany have warned that further sanctions could be imposed on Russia unless air accident investigators are allowed full access to the crash site.

Malaysia Airlines has offered any passenger booked on one of its flights from now until the end of the year the option of a full refund.

The offer applies to all passengers, including those who have booked non-refundable tickets and those who have redeemed their flights with Enrich frequent flyer programme miles.