UKRAINE’S security service claims it has “compelling evidence’’ Russian-backed rebels are behind the MH17 disaster which killed 298 people, including 37 Australian citizens and permanent residents.

The Prime Minister’s office has confirmed an additional resident from Western Australia was on MH17, taking the death toll to 37 residents and citizens.

Ukraine’s emergency services claim separatist rebels have taken away all the 196 bodies that workers recovered from the Malaysian Airlines plane crash site to an unknown location.

The Associated Press is reporting that the rebels put bagged bodies onto trucks at the crash site before driving them away on Saturday.

Dozens of bodies from the crash site were then loaded onto refrigerated rail carriages.

Bodies being loaded into these refrigerated rail cars in city of Torez. #MH17 pic.twitter.com/nr97W4AfOo — Paul Sonne (@PaulSonne) July 20, 2014

The train with MH17 bodies. Surreally deserted. Suspect there will be 600 journalists here in about ten minutes... pic.twitter.com/wOmjgmJcuf — Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) July 20, 2014

The train — which has five refrigerated carriages carrying the corpses — has departed from a station close to the main crash site and is reportedly heading for rebel stronghold Donetsk, according to the Associated Press.

Monitors from European security body Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe inspected the carriages at Torez station, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reports.

The monitors were quoting them as saying a total of 198 bodies were on board — presumably recovered from across the vast crash site.

Nataliya Khuruzhaya, a duty officer at the train station in Torez, 15 kilometres from the crash site, said she saw emergency workers loading bodies Sunday into five sealed, refrigerated train cars.

She said the train was scheduled to head to the town of Ilovaysk, 35 kilometres further east toward the Russian border, but no instructions had been given about when it would leave or any possible destinations beyond Ilovaysk.

Russian news agencies said the bodies were heading to the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Ukrainian officials say they expect to have the bodies eventually delivered to government-held city of Kharkiv, but it’s unclear if the rebels will agree to do so.

The pro-Russian rebels who had been guarding the main impact site also appeared to have left, with about a dozen stretchers, paper masks and plastic gloves abandoned at the site.

The poles marking locations where bodies had been found in the field had also been removed.

The Associated Press is reporting that the rebels put bagged bodies onto trucks at the crash site before driving them away on Saturday.

Meanwhile, “Novorossiya” - a pro-Russian rebel has tweeted the black boxes belonging to Malaysian airliner MH17 had been brought to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

On Sunday, AP journalists saw no bodies at the crash site and emergency workers were searching the sprawling area only for body parts.

Ukrainian spokeswoman Nataliya Bystro said that the emergency workers had been labouring under duress and were forced to give the bodies to the armed rebels.

“Where they took the bodies - we don’t know,” Bystro told The Associated Press.

Earlier, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Ukraine crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was “absolutely chaotic”, and he feared interference with the evidence would continue.

The doomed flight was shot down on Friday by a surface-to-air missile over a part of Ukraine controlled by Russian separatists.

MORE: AUSSIE VICTIMS LOST ON MH17

PUTIN UNDER PRESSURE TO TAKE ACTION

The United States has confirmed that Russia supplied sophisticated missile launchers to separatists in eastern Ukraine and that attempts were made to move them back across the Russian border after the Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down.

Reported in The Washington Post , a US official said: “We do believe they were trying to move back into Russia at least three Buk [missile launch] systems”. U.S. intelligence was “starting to get indications ... a little more than a week ago” that the Russian launchers had been moved into Ukraine.

The US official’s comments were made under a condition of anonymity and compound the claims of the Security Service of Ukraine to have conclusive proof that the Boeing 777 aircraft was shot down with the use of Buk antimissile system which had been transferred, along with its crew, from Russia to Ukraine.

Counter-intelligence chief at the SSU, Vitaly Nayda, said: “The SSU conducts investigative actions and receives irrefutable evidence that Russian citizens were involved in the act of terrorism.”

Mr Nayda said the evidence had been already forwarded to all their international partners.

The SSU directly cooperates with the Dutch police and law enforcers from other states whose citizens were victims of the disaster.

Journalists were shown pictures of what Mr Nayda said were photos of three Buk missile systems on the road towards the Russian border hours after MH17 was shot down.

However the images could not be independently verified by international agencies.

Mr Nayda alleged intelligence had identified a launch point in the district controlled by terrorists and the Russian military.

He claimed two movers each with a Buk missile launcher crossed the Russian border in Luhansk region on July 18 -hours after the disaster- and shortly after that three movers: one of them empty, another carrying a launcher with four missiles and the latter allegedly with a control unit, crossed the state border, The New York Times reported.

Mr Nayda said Russia attempted to suppress evidence of its involvement, but did not provide further details.

The allegation of a cover-up, both in hiding the weapons after the missile was fired, and hindering investigators from gathering evidence at the crash scene, is fuelling an already heated political and diplomatic environment.

The SSU claims come as intelligence chiefs in the US reportedly received multiple reports suggesting Russia provided separatists in eastern Ukraine with anti-aircraft systems and other military equipment.

Fox News said President Obama had been given the reports at Camp David, where he is spending the weekend, that also show the systems were “smuggled” back to Russia after the missile strike.

The revelations follows widespread outrage that three days after the tragedy decomposing bodies are still lying in the open while heavily-armed rebels refuse to co-operate with authorities.

At the same time pressure is continuing to build on Russian President Vladmir Putin to support an international investigation.

There are also growing calls for him to be barred from attending the G20 summit in Brisbane later this year if he fails to do so.

Anger is also growing towards the Russian leader who many blame for supplying the rebels with the sophisticated surface to air missiles reportedly used to bring the plane down.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has led international calls for Russia to assist the investigation into the tragedy while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has flown to New York to spearhead a campaign for an independent, UN-backed inquiry.

Mr Abbott told the ABC this morning: “There are (37) people who call Australia home who have been snuffed out. This is an horrific crime”.

He could not be specific when the victims could be returned home because, “not all the bodies will be intact”.

At the same time there appeared to be no one in charge at the crash site with investigators twice turned away.

The Prime Minister said it wasn’t clear where the bodies that had been removed from the site had been taken.

The tragedy would have touched every Australian, he said.

“You look at the faces of the dead and they’re your neighbours, they’re your friends, they could be your kids because let’s face it, we are a people who like to travel and my own daughters flew on MH17 some months ago on their way home from Europe. So this is a tragedy which touches us deeply,” he told ABC’s Insiders program.

It has also emerged that he hasn’t spoken directly to Putin or other senior figures in the Russian Government, aside from the Russian Trade Minister in Sydney for a G20 meeting.

His message was “crystal clear”.

“Russian-controlled territory, Russian-backed rebels, quite likely a Russian-supplied weapon: Russia can’t wash its hands of this.”

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has spoken to Putin in what he described as an “intense” conversation.

“He has one last chance to show he means to help.”

Journalists asking truck driver carrying bodies of #MH17 victims from crash site on his destination - he doesn't know pic.twitter.com/Mq9mrS2X8g — Volodymyr Solohub (@v_solohub) July 19, 2014

The G20 trade meeting went ahead as scheduled despite the escalating diplomatic crisis and angry scenes outside when protesters took to the streets to demand Putin not be allowed entry into Australia.

Signs with the words “Stop Putin” were waved around outside building the G20 meeting was being held in.

Mr Abbott indicated yesterday Putin’s attendance hinged largely on how events unfolded over the next few days.

“Australia is a self-respecting country ... Visitors to this country are people who have done the right thing by this country.”

Among the Australian victims are 25-year-old Jack O’Brien from NSW, who had been on his way home from a seven week European holiday and a Queensland man, Howard Horder, who quipped that he was flying with Malaysia Airlines and only needed a one-way ticket.

This morning Mr Abbott was joined by the Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove at a special mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney to honour the MH17 victims.

Australia’s political leaders have all been united in their condemnation of the attack and called on Putin to explain Russia’s role.

Labor leader Bill Shorten declared the Opposition would fully support Putin being barred from the event and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said he would not be welcome in his state if he did not fully co-operate.

The tension is not only due to the fact Russian-backed militants in rebel-controlled Ukraine are blamed for the atrocity but the appalling conditions at the crash site.

Investigators have been frustrated at the lack of access to the site which is being guarded by rebels, who argue they are providing security.

Russia denies it has any control over the rebels but there are reports that the bodies are being taken away to Russian-controlled hospitals. It’s still unclear where the post-mortem’s will be carried out.

‘LOOTING’ AT CRASH SCENE, BODIES ‘DRAGGED’ AWAY

But many bodies lay in fields where they landed unprotected from the elements.

One local described the grim scene.

“There are things everywhere, body parts, there is a laptop over there open and appears to be intact, plastic whisky bottles and I see a little blue backpack with Australians coins, silver ones they have “20” written on them and some pattern, I think they are Australian.

“I see an Australian power plug too, I know what they look like and a lot of children’s toys are everywhere.”

More than 80 children were killed on MH17.

“There is a little monkey, black and white, which was a children toy and nearby by burning black things, still smoking. Several of them. I didn’t realise until after but they were burning children’ bodies. It is terribly sad.”

Security spokesman Andriy Lysenko accused the separatists of destroying evidence and taking remnants of the plane to Russia.

Speaking through a translator, he said rebels had forced international observers to leave the site so they could remove almost 40 bodies to Donetsk.

“According to the information we have that was done in order to find in the bodies of victims parts of missile which shot down the plane.

He said bandits had “taken valuables from bodies and used credit cards of victims of the tragedy”.

He confirmed there was on Friday “an appalling case of dragging away a number of bodies, just on a lorry”.

“For me it’s going beyond any sort of moral value and consideration.”

In response to the claims credit cards had been looted from victims, the Dutch Banking Association issued a statement saying next-of-kin would not have to pay costs.

Observers have told of bodies being placed in body bags and left on the side of the road. But in many cases the bags haven’t been zipped up and the bodies, in some cases stripped of clothes, are still exposed to the elements.

On the sides of the road and throughout the field where the plane crashed are piles of belongings belonging to the victims.

A Dutch novel, womens’ underwear, hairbrushes, celebrity magazines, a smashed Macbook laptop and duty free alcohol are some of the items that appear to have been rifled through. Although whether it’s by the rebel guards, or the locals who can walk freely around the wreckage, is unclear.

Bodies of #MH17 victims driven to undisclosed location after #MalaysiaAirlines plane was hit by missile in E.#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/zcBIjZyL8O — Volodymyr Solohub (@v_solohub) July 19, 2014

The atmosphere at the crash site is sombre and tense. Some of the rebel guards became agitated as journalists tried to access the makeshift emergency headquarters and fired off warning shots, The Wall Street Journal said. But there is no cordon around the bodies, or the plane, which is now the world’s largest crime scene.

Many of them, who blame Ukraine for shooting down the plane, are furious the world is focused on the MH17 tragedy and not their ongoing dispute with Ukraine.

“Do you consider this a tragedy, what happened here? Why do you think this is a tragedy, because your compatriots, peaceful civilians, died?” said a rebel security official at the site.

“Then I have one other question for you: What about the city of Slovyansk, about Kramatorsk?” he said, referring to local cities where fighting has been severe.

“That wasn’t a tragedy when the civilian population was destroyed? Little children. That’s not a tragedy?”

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, said 100 rescue workers were on site but under the control of 800 to 900 heavily-armed gunmen.

“Rescue teams have to follow their orders under the guns,” he said.

“We ask them give the bodies of innocent people to us. Those bodies should be delivered to their families, to their countries. This is the issue number one for us.”

Mr Groysman said when victims’ relatives arrived in Kiev they would be put up in hotels. A centre has been established at the international airport to provide next of kin with visas.

Mr Groysman said his government had a plane ready to deliver investigators to the crash site but “we didn’t receive a guarantee from the Russian Federation as to the security of people who will work on the site”.

The country’s Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the Ukrainian government had been talking to the “terrorists”, often via videoconference calls, to try and secure unhindered access.

“Unfortunately it was extremely difficult yesterday and it’s difficult today,” he said.

“What we need now is international pressure also on Russia, because Russia has influence on these terrorists to provide clear and unhindered access to the place of the crash.”