World leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and demanded speedy access for international investigators to the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner shot down over the country’s battlefields.

Hundreds of people are feared dead after a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine.

The Interfax agency has said a Malaysian passenger jet carrying 295 people has crashed in Ukraine.

Four of eight observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe who were held hostage in eastern Ukraine have been released.