A satellite belonging to the European Space Agency has detected a possible oil slick in the Mediterranean, in the same area where search tems are hunting for an EgyptAir plane that vanished on Thursday.

The Sentinel-1A radar satellite spotted the 2 km-long long slick late on Thursday about 40 kilometres southeast of the last known location of the aircraft.

"There is, however, no guarantee that the slick is from the missing aircraft," the agency said in a statement.

The agency said the findings were sent to relevant authorities to assist in the search process.

On Friday afternoon, the Egyptian military announced it had located parts of debris and "passengers' belongings" in the Mediterranean north of Alexandria. The Greek defence minister said that the Egyptian teams had found "a body part", suitcases and seats from the plane.

Since the Airbus A320 plane vanished from radar on Thursday morning while flying over the Mediterranean, the agency and other experts have been scrutinising satellite data.

Another satellite, Sentinel-2A, will pass above the same area on Sunday, the agency said, adding that it will continue to study the images in for "further clues," it added.