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French military ships searching for the black boxes of Flight 447 have detected sounds in the Atlantic Ocean depths but they are not from the Air France plane''s flight recorders, a French military official said on Tuesday.

French military spokesman Commander Christophe Prazuck and French investigators have denied a report, which appeared on the website of the French newspaper Le Monde, that French ships had picked up a signal from one of the black boxes.

French military ships searching in the area where the plane crashed regularly hear sounds which are then investigated, Prazuck said, but he stated that the black boxes have not been found.

The two recorders, key to helping determine what happened to the Air France plane that plunged into the ocean on May 31, will only continue to emit signals for another eight days or so.

The Airbus A330 plane fell into the Atlantic Ocean after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed. The cause of the crash remains unclear.

The French air accident investigation agency, the BEA, also said in a statement on Tuesday that "no signals transmitted by the flight recorders'' locator beacons have been validated up to now." The BEA said work is continuing, and that "any findings will be made public."

And a French official also on Tuesday said the sounds detected by search teams in the Atlantic depths are not those of Flight 447''s black boxes. The aide to France''s top transport official, Jean-Louis Borloo, says the "black boxes have not been detected." The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to be publicly named.

Last week, BEA director Paul-Louis Arslanian sternly warned against any unconfirmed leaks in the investigation, saying they could mislead the public and unnecessarily worry or encourage the families.

Le Monde said a mini research submarine, the Nautile, dived on Monday to search for the boxes based on a "very weak signal" from the flight recorders picked up by the French ships.

Brazilian and American officials said that as of Sunday evening no signals from the black boxes had been picked up.

Searchers from Brazil, France, the United States and other countries are methodically scanning the surface and depths of the Atlantic for signs of the plane.

French-chartered ships are scouring a search area with a radius of 50 miles (80 kilometres), pulling US Navy underwater listening devices attached to 19,700 feet (6-thousand metres) of cable. A French submarine is also searching.

The black boxes send out an electronic tapping sound that can be heard up to 1.25 miles (2 kilometres) away. Ten of 50 bodies recovered from the Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic three weeks ago have been identified as Brazilians, medical examiners said.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples were used to identify the bodies. Investigators are reviewing all remains, debris and baggage at a base set up in Recife, Brazil.