Egypt's head of forensics denied reports that an initial examination of human remains belonging to victims aboard the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean pointed towards an explosion, state news agency Mena said on Tuesday.

"Everything published about this matter is completely false, and mere assumptions that did not come from the Forensics Authority," Mena quoted Hesham Abdelhamid as saying in a statement.

Earlier,  another official had said that the human remains so far retrieved from the wreckage of the crashed EgyptAir plane suggest that there was an explosion aboard.

The official based his assessment on the small size of body parts so far recovered from the site in the Mediterranean sea. Investigators had not so far found any traces of explosives that would suggest it was caused by a bomb, the sources said.

"The size of the remains points towards an explosion, the biggest part was the size of a palm. Some of the remains started arriving on Sunday in about 23 bags," the forensics official said.

However, another forensics official said only a tiny number of remains had arrived so far and it was too early to specify whether there had been an explosion aboard. - Reuters