Kuala Lumpur, March 15 (IANS): The Malaysian police have searched the house of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah who flew the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing March 8.

Three policemen arrived at the captain's house soon after Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak confirmed Saturday that the plane was suspected to have been diverted deliberately, the Malaysian Star reported.

The captain's investigation will include his political and religious views and also his hobbies and behaviour with friends and family.

A resident of Penang, Captain Zaharie studied aviation at the Philippine Airlines Aviation School in Pasay City in 1980 before joining Malaysia Airlines a year later. He has a total of 18,360 hours of flying experience.

He is also known as an "aviation geek", a name given to him by his colleagues for his love of collecting remote-controlled miniature aircraft, light twin engine helicopters and amphibious aircraft.

It is not yet clear if the police have taken anything from his house.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur early morning March 8. It was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast in the South China Sea.

The 227 passengers on the flight included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.

Contact with the plane was lost along with its radar signal when it was flying over the air traffic control area of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

A multinational intensive search has so far failed to locate the plane.