Two men traveling with stolen passports on board Malaysia Airlines flight 370 have no links to terrorist networks, authorities confirmed Tuesday.
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said 18-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, who is Iranian, was likely migrating to Germany. He was traveling with Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29, according to Interpol. The men flew from Doha, India using their Iranian passports. However, they boarded the Malaysia Airlines flight with stolen passports from Austria and Italy.
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Pictures of the two men, a 19-year old Iranian, identified by Malaysian police as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, left, and the man on the right, his identity still not released, who boarded the now missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 with stolen passports, is held up by a Malaysian policewoman during a press conference, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 in Sepang, Malaysia. One of the two men traveling on a missing Malaysian Airlines jetliner was an Iranian asylum seeker, officials said
Image: Wong Maye-E/Associated Press
Malaysia Airlines flight 370 vanished on Friday without warning while in cruising altitude en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Authorities from at least eight countries combed the area where they believe the plane carrying 239 people disappeared, but so far, nothing has panned out.

More than a dozen microphones are propped on a table as Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar answers questions from the media during a press conference, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 in Sepang, Malaysia.
Image: Wong Maye-E/Associated Press
Because flight 370 suddenly dropped off the radar, authorities believed that violence could have played a part, and they turned their attention on the two Iranian passengers who flew on the stolen passports. However, Tuesday's revelations coincide with a BBC interview earlier this week in which a young Iranian claiming to be a former schoolmate of one of the men said both of the passengers stayed with him before the flight. He told the news outlet that the two Iranian men had hoped to settle in Europe.
While the stolen passports seemed like a solid lead in the case, experts say this is common in a hub for illegal migration, according to the BBC.
Authorities are still unsure about what happened to flight 370. So far, their only clues — reported oil slicks and debris — have fallen through. They have since widened the search area to 100 nautical miles in the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Flight 370 was cruising around 35,000 feet when it dropped from radar with no signal from pilots, which is almost unheard of in the aviation world. Authorities believe it may have disintegrated in mid-flight, but no wreckage has been recovered after a weekend search with 34 aircrafts and 40 ships. It's extremely rare for an aircraft to suddenly vanish, without warning, during cruising altitude, as most airplane accidents occur during takeoff or landing.