Russia's foreign minister has said the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden never crossed the border into the country, deepening the mystery over his suspected flight from Hong Kong.

Sergei Lavrov was careful not to deny that Snowden had arrived at Moscow's international airpot on Sunday, but insisted that Russia had no involvement with his travel plans.

Snowden's trans-continental attempt to evade capture by US authorities continued to frustrate Washington on Tuesday. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, repeated his call for Moscow to turn Snowden over.

Speaking in Saudi Arabia, Kerry said: "I would simply appeal for calm and reasonableness. We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is 'a fugitive' from justice.' "

But Lavrov made it clear that Russia did not intend to get involved. "I would like to say right away that we have no relation to either Mr Snowden or to his relationship with American justice or to his movements around the world," Lavrov said.

"He chose his route on his own, and we found out about it, as most here did, from mass media," he said during a joint press conference with Algeria's foreign minister. "He did not cross the Russian border."

According to WikiLeaks, which said it facilitated his travel, Snowden fled Hong Kong on Sunday morning to transit via Moscow to an undisclosed third country. He has applied to be granted political asylum by Ecuador, whose London embassy is currently sheltering the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Russian news agencies, citing anonymous sources, reported that Snowden had arrived in Moscow on Sunday evening and met Ecuadorean diplomats at Sheremetyevo airport while awaiting a Monday afternoon flight to Havana, from where he would travel to Quito. Snowden did not show up for the flight.

Passengers arriving on the Hong Kong to Moscow flight that was suspected to be carrying Snowden said they saw police activity and at least one black car drive up to the plane before they were allowed to disembark.

That fuelled speculation that Snowden may have been whisked from the plane before going through passport control. Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson, an Icelandic businessman with links to WikiLeaks, told Reuters last week that he had readied a private jet to aid Snowden's flight from Hong Kong should the Icelandic government grant him asylum.

The US has warned Russia and China against helping Snowden as it seeks his extradition to face charges of espionage for gathering and disclosing documents outlining US surveillance programmes.

The White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday that the US was working under the assumption that Snowden was in Russia.

Lavrov lashed out angrily at suggestions that Russia was involved. "We consider the attempts we are now seeing to blame the Russian side for breaking US laws and being almost in on the plot totally baseless and unacceptable, and even an attempt to threaten us," he said.

China's top state newspaper earlier praised Snowden for "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask" and rejected accusations Beijing had facilitated his departure from Hong Kong.

The strongly worded front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist party, responded to harsh criticism of China from the US for allowing Snowden to flee.

The Chinese government has said it was gravely concerned by Snowden's allegations that the US had hacked into many networks in Hong Kong and China, including Tsinghua University, which hosts one of the country's internet hubs, and Chinese mobile network companies. It said it had taken the issue up with Washington.

"Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong special administrative region for handling things in accordance with law," wrote Wang Xinjun, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science in the People's Daily commentary.

"In a sense, the United States has gone from a 'model of human rights' to 'an eavesdropper on personal privacy', the 'manipulator' of the centralised power over the international internet, and the mad 'invader' of other countries' networks," the People's Daily said.

The White House said allowing Snowden to leave was "a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the US-China relationship".

The People's Daily, which reflects the thinking of the government, said China could not accept "this kind of dissatisfaction and opposition".

"The world will remember Edward Snowden," the newspaper said. "It was his fearlessness that tore off Washington's sanctimonious mask".

The exchanges mark a deterioration in ties between the two countries just weeks after a successful summit meeting between presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping. But experts say Washington is unlikely to resort to any punitive action.

A commentary in the Global Times, owned by the People's Daily, also attacked the US for cornering "a young idealist who has exposed the sinister scandals of the US government".

"Instead of apologising, Washington is showing off its muscle by attempting to control the whole situation," the Global Times said.