Czech Airlines (CSA) will change its relevant route to avoid the Ukrainian airspace following the crash of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane in eastern Ukraine on Thursday.

The airlines spokesman Daniel Sabik said that the CSA will have two aircraft flying around Thursday midnight to Tashkent and to Rostov-on-Don, where the air traffic control seeks to provide an alternative route.

If it failed, the two CSA flights will be cancelled, the spokesman said.

The Malaysia Airlines passenger plane MH17 carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in an arean of eastern Ukraine where separatist rebels have been engaging Ukrainian military forces in recent weeks.

Ukrain's president Petro Poroshenko has said that the jet may have been shot down.