Egypt's government said 15 bodies have been recovered and transferred to a morgue so far from the site of Saturday's Russian passenger plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula.

Prime Minister Ismail Sharif went to an airport at the edge of the peninsula from where "15 bodies were airlifted to the Zeinhom morgue in Cairo", the government said in a statement.

The head of Egypt's civil aviation authority had said there were "many" dead including 17 children after the plane carrying 224 crashed.