A United States senator says he will petition the country's Federal Aviation Administration to install missile defence systems on commercial airliners in the wake of the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine.

Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from the state of Illinois, told the Washington Post commercial aircraft needed to be able to defend themselves.

A Buk M2 missile system in 2010. Credit:AP

“I think they should actively look into mounting active defences on civil aircraft that are carrying hundreds of people,” Kirk told the Post.

“It’s not too technically difficult to add a radar warning system on an aircraft, where a pilot in command could dispense chaff to defeat a radar-guided missile.”