Air France is censoring information about the Airbus 330 crash published by French daily Le Figaro.

The French airline has sent a fax to airports in several countries, among them to Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport, forbidding its staff to give passengers a French daily Le Figaro.

Air France has imposed a ban on Le Figaro after the daily published an article in which it accused the French carrier of not having replaced faulty airspeed sensors in its planes. Le Figaro claims that defective aircraft speed monitors caused serious, although not catastrophic, problems in other Air France planes - Airbus A330 and 340 models - in the past. Air France ordered the replacements in April and received them three days before the crash.

No Air France spokespersons wanted to comment on the alleged censorship but did not deny the fact that the company sent a fax to its branches.

The company's Airbus 330, with 228 people on board, disappeared on Sunday 31 May about four hours after it had taken off from Rio de Janeiro en route to Paris. So far, 44 bodies have been recovered from the area where flight 447 came down. The actual cause of the crash will not be known until black boxes are recovered.