KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia said Thursday that satellite images of suspected debris from a missing jet were yet another false lead, and debunked a report the plane had flown on for hours after losing contact — leaving the nearly week-old mystery no closer to being solved.



China had sparked talk of a breakthrough in the riddle of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) jet with satellite images of three large floating objects near where flight 370 with 239 people on board lost contact on Saturday, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.



But Vietnamese and Malaysian planes that searched the area in the South China Sea on Thursday found no sign of wreckage of the Boeing 777, which has one of the best safety records of any jet.



Adding to confusion, the Wall Street Journal reported that US investigators suspected the plane flew for four hours after its last known contact with air traffic control at 1:30 a.m. Malaysian time, based on data automatically sent from its Rolls-Royce engines.



It would mean flight MH370 traveled for hundreds of miles after it dropped off the radar, expanding the potential crash site far beyond the vast zone under scrutiny now.



The WSJ said US counterterrorism officials were probing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board diverted the jet towards an unknown location after turning off its communication transponder.



But Malaysia denied the report as “inaccurate.” “The last (data) transmission from the aircraft was at 0107 hours which indicated that everything was normal,” Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.



“Rolls-Royce and Boeing teams are here in Kuala Lumpur and have worked with MAS and investigation teams since Sunday. These issues have never been raised.”



He added that China had told Malaysia that the satellite photos posted on the website of a Chinese state science agency were released “by mistake and did not show any debris.”



The day of Malaysian denials only exacerbated the puzzles surrounding the search for flight MH370, which has been blighted by false alarms, swirling rumors and contradictory statements about its fate.



Authorities have chased up all manner of leads, including oil slicks, a supposed life raft found at sea and even witness accounts of a night-time explosion, only to rule them all out.



Malaysia has contributed to the confusion by saying the plane may have turned back after taking off. Military radar detected an unidentified object early Saturday north of the Malacca Strait off west Malaysia but it is unclear if it was the missing airliner.



The search for the plane now encompasses both sides of peninsular Malaysia, over an area of nearly 27,000 nautical miles — roughly the size of Portugal — and involves the navies and air forces of multiple nations.



Theories about the possible cause of the disappearance range from a catastrophic technical failure to a mid-air explosion, hijacking, rogue missile strike and even pilot suicide.



Beijing will keep up the search “as long as there is a glimmer of hope,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said. The passengers included 153 Chinese citizens, and Li told his once-a-year news conference: “Those people’s families and friends are burning with anxiety.”



The satellite information prompted the focus of the search to swing back Thursday to the original flight path, after a shift in recent days to Malaysia’s west coast — far from the last known location.



Malaysian police said Thursday they were investigating the two pilots, after an Australian television report of a past cockpit security breach, although the transport minister denied that their homes had been raided.



Malaysia Airlines has said it was “shocked” over allegations that First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, along with a fellow pilot, violated airline rules in 2011 by allowing two young South African women into their cockpit during a flight.



On Thursday, Malaysia Airlines said it would retire the flight codes MH370 and MH371 — the return flight from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur — as a mark of respect. — AFP