JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency chief said Tuesday that just three bodies had been recovered so far in the search for the AirAsia plane which crashed in the Java Sea, after another official said 40 had been found.

"Today we evacuated three bodies and they are now in the warship Bung Tomo," Bambang Soelistyo told a news conference in Jakarta, adding that they were two females and one male.

Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir told AFP earlier that according to naval radio a warship had recovered more than 40 bodies from the sea. But he later said that report was a miscommunication by his staff.

The Airbus A320-200 carrying 162 people crashed Sunday en route from Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya to Singapore, with wreckage recovered near its last known location.