Fugitive American whistleblower Edward Snowden has held a meeting with human rights representatives in the transit area of a Moscow airport.

It was the first official sighting of the former US intelligence contractor since he left Hong Kong on June 23.

Snowden told a small group of human rights activists that he was reinstating a claim for asylum in Russia but intended ultimately to leave Moscow and take up an offer of asylum in Latin America.

The 30-year-old has been offered asylum by Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

He asked the group to lobby on his behalf for his asylum claim to be approved and "requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America".

But it was unclear when that might happen, or how.

"He wants to move further on, he wants to move to Latin America - he said it quite clearly," Tanya Lokshina, deputy head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, said.

"But in order to be guaranteed safety here in Russia, the only way for him to go was to file a formal asylum plea."

President Barack Obama spoke to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Friday about Snowden after the White House warned Moscow not to give the fugitive leaker a "propaganda platform" by granting him asylum.

A Kremlin spokesman said Snowden should not harm the interests of the US if he wanted refuge in Russia - a condition set by president Vladimir Putin on July 1 and which the Kremlin said prompted Snowden to withdraw an asylum request at the time.

Snowden, who lived with his girlfriend in Hawaii and worked at a National Security Agency facility there before fleeing he country, said he had sacrificed a comfortable life in disclosing details of secret surveillance programs.

"A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise," Snowden, 30, said at the closed-door meeting, footage of which was shown on Russian television and a news website with close ties to Russian law enforcement agencies.

"I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone's communications at any time. That is the power to change people's fates," he said.

Snowden maintains he has no regrets

After Snowden's meeting, pro-Kremlin politicians lined up to cast him as a rights activist who deserved protection because he could be charged in the US with espionage, a crime that carries the death penalty.

"There is a really great risk that Edward Snowden is facing this very punishment," Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the lower house of parliament, told state TV. "We simply can't allow this."

Snowden cast himself in similar terms.

"I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets," he said.

"That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets."

Ms Lokshina said American officials asked her to tell Snowden that the United States did not see it that way.

"I was contacted on my phone on my way to the airport on behalf of the ambassador and they asked me to relay to Snowden the official position of the US authorities - that he is not a whistleblower but had broken the law and should be held accountable," she said.

She said she passed on the message.

'Willingness to act outside the law'

Images from the meeting - first a grainy photograph snapped by a participant, then video footage - showed Snowden with WikiLeaks legal assistant Sarah Harrison. He wore a grey shirt and looked in good health.

After the activists were led through a grey door marked "staff only", Ms Lokshina said they were put on a bus, driven around until they reached a different part of Sheremetyevo airport and taken to a room where Snowden was waiting.

At one point, Snowden's talk of "massive, pervasive surveillance" was interrupted by a public address announcement, prompting laughter.

"I've heard this many times in the past few weeks," Snowden said, twirling his finger at the loudspeaker.

The United States has revoked Snowden's passport and urged nations not to give him passage to an asylum destination.

Bolivian president Evo Morales, returning from a visit to Russia last week, had to land in Austria after he was denied access to the airspace of several European countries on suspicion Snowden might be on board his plane.

"Some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today," Snowden told the meeting.

"This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights."

ABC/Reuters