CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said on Thursday he can’t “rule out” any possibility that EgyptAir’s missing Flight 804 was victim of a terrorist attack.

Ismail said that the search was underway to find the missing Flight 804 and it was too early to rule out any explanation for the incident, including terrorism.

"Search operations are ongoing at this time for the airplane in the area where it is believed to have lost contact," he told reporters at Cairo airport.

Asked by a journalist if he could rule out that terrorists were behind the incident, Ismail said: "We cannot exclude anything at this time or confirm anything. All the search operations must be concluded so we can know the cause."

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a national security council meeting on Thursday morning, a statement from his office said. It did not say if the meeting would discuss the plane.

The spokesman of the Egyptian army, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir, meanwhile said the army has not received any distress call from the missing plane, contrary to a statement by an official from the airline. Samir issued the denial in a statement posted on the army’s official Facebook page.

Prime Minister Ismail was quoted by state news agency MENA as saying there was no “distress call” but there was a “signal” received from the plane.

Officials said Flight 804 got lost from radar at 2:45 a.m. local time when it was flying at 37,000 feet.

Egyptian armed forces were searching for the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew. The pilot had 6,000 flight hours. Earlier, the airline said 69 people were on board

The plane most likely crashed into the sea, Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation authority, told SkyNews Arabia. He said the plane was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar. The airline, however, said the Airbus A320 had vanished 10 miles (16 kilometers) after it entered Egyptian airspace.

France is offering to send military planes and boats to help search for the plane.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault says the government is in constant contact with Egyptian authorities since the plane’s disappearance early Thursday.

He said: “We are at the disposition of the Egyptian authorities with our military capacities, with our planes, our boats to help in the search for this plane.”

He spoke after French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace.

Ayrault confirmed 15 French people were on the flight. “We imagine the anguish of the families.”