Images were released by "mistake" and did not show debris from MH370
Seri Hishammudin said the situation was 'unprecedented', and nothing had been done to jeopardise the effort to find the aircraft.
And he dismissed reports that the plane had continued to fly for four hours after its final transmission early on Saturday morning.
And Malaysia Airlines has admitted it is no further forward in finding out what happened to the plane, and its disappearance remained a "complete mystery".
The transport minister said: "This is a crisis situation. It's a very complex operation.
"Our focus has been finding the aircraft.
"We have not done anything that would jeopardise this search effort. Malaysia has nothing to hide."
He added: "I would like to refer to news reports suggesting that the aircraft may have continued flying for some time after the last contact.
"Those reports are inaccurate. The last transmission from the aircraft was at 01:07 which indicated that everything was normal."
Pilots Fariq Abdul Hamid and Zaharie Ahmad Shah
There are now 43 ships and 40 aircraft engaged in the search effort.
No wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has been found after a search of a possible debris site.
Malaysia and Vietnam sent aircraft to the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia on Wednesday evening after China released satellite images appearing to show potential debris.
However, according to Malaysian authorities, China has now said these images had been released by "mistake", and did not show plane debris.
The release of the images briefly raised hopes of an end to the mystery surrounding the fate of flight MH370, which left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing six days ago with 239 people on board.
Reports the plane continued flying after losing contact have been denied
The pilot replied "Okay, received, goodnight" when Malaysian air traffic controllers signed off and told the plane it was entering Vietnam's airspace. Vietnamese controllers say they never heard from the aircraft.
US officials said on Wednesday none of the country's satellites detected a mid-air explosion when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.
The search has now been widened to cover 27,000 square nautical miles.
India has been asked to scour the Andaman Sea off Malaysia's west coast, and the search is also covering the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
Malaysia's air force chief confirmed military radar detected what could have been the airliner in an area in the north of the Strait of Malacca at around 2.15am local time on Saturday - 45 minutes after the plane vanished from air traffic control screens.
Rodzali Daud said the radar tracking point was 200 miles northwest of Penang Island on Malaysia's west coast, but that the detection had not been corroborated.
A woman writes a message of support for the passengers
Footage has emerged of relatives furious at the lack of progress in the hunt for the flight.
The video is thought to have been recorded two days ago, and shows family members shouting and throwing an object at officials.
The majority of the passengers on board were Chinese, and impatience is growing there.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "There's too much information and confusion right now. It is very hard for us to decide whether a given piece of information is accurate.
"We will not give it up as long as there's still a shred of hope."
Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities there "have nothing to hide".
"There is only confusion if you want to see confusion," he said.
Reader Comments
that 20 of the passengers work (ed) for the DOD, and an Electronic Warfare project that involved stealth technology and cloaking. Test going well so far, I'd say.
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