NEW DELHI, March 16 -- A senior Indian Air Force officer has expressed surprise over the slowness of reaction of Malaysia to its missing plane, said local daily Times of India online Sunday.

The unnamed officer also said it was unlikely that the plane flew above Indian skies as it could have come under attack.

"We are surprised that the Malaysian military authorities did not react for two days after their primary radar spotted the plane, " he was quoted as saying.

He said India committed a similar mistake in 1995 in the Purulia arms drop case in which unauthorised arms were dropped from an aircraft to the West Bengal state in India.

"Surveillance authorities should immediately react to anonymous flights and such information should be shared across civilian and military agencies too. If the assumptions are true, the missing plane would have needed to fly through the airspace of several countries in the region," the officer said.

The Purulia arms drop case was reportedly carried out by European mercenaries tasked to drop arms to rebel-infested areas in northeast India.