Brigadier-General Neal Sealock, the leader of the US delegation, said after the 40-minute meeting: "The entire crew is in good health. They are being well taken care of. The entire crew has faith in America, and I indicated we have faith in them.

"They are all doing fine and their spirits are high. Our goal is to get them home as soon as possible."

The meeting took place in the Hainan capital Haikou against a backdrop of mounting tensions over the incident, with President Jiang Zemin blaming Washington for the crisis and the US accusing Beijing of boarding the plane illegally.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was gratified US diplomats had finally been granted access to the 24 crew members and hoped it would be "a beginning to an end to this incident".

"I hope that this meeting will lead to the rapid release of all of the members of the crew back to the United States . . . and I also hope it will lead to the rapid return of our airplane," he said.

A Chinese police official earlier said the crew were transported by van to Haikou, a drive of five hours from the Lingshui base where they had been held since the plane landed. Signs that the conflict had deepened came last night when the Foreign Ministry summoned reporters to a meeting to demand the US apologise.

Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao gave a summary of what Assistant Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong told the US Ambassador to China, Admiral Joseph Prueher, on Monday night. He said the ambassador had been told the US was not entitled to raise any demands over the midair collision and should "face reality", take responsibility and apologise to China.

Beijing alleges the US violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a bilateral agreement reached last May on avoiding military risks in sea areas.

"The responsibility fully lies with the American side, we have full evidence for that," Mr Jiang told visiting Qatar Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Khalifa al-Thani in Beijing yesterday.

"It is the US plane that violated flight rules by displaying dangerous moves, bumped into and destroyed our plane, and as a result the pilot is missing," Mr Jiang said, according to a Xinhua report.

"We cannot understand why the US often sends its planes to make surveillance flights so close to China." He said an immediate halt would be "conducive to the development of Sino-US relations".

His comments came hours after US President George W. Bush demanded swift access to the sensitive EP-3E Aries II spy plane and its crew.

Mr Bush had warned that wider relations could be at risk unless diplomats were granted immediate access.

(Agencies)