An Air Algerie flight carrying 110 passengers and six crew members has disappeared from radar.

Flight 5017 was flying from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital when it vanished over northern Mali, the plane's owner and a French government official said.

Air controllers lost contact with the Swiftair MD-83 about 50 minutes after takeoff, the official Algerian news agency said. But it was hours before that information was made public.