An Australian air force transport plane was the last aircraft to depart eastern Ukraine today carrying the remains of victims from the downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

All 298 people on board the flight perished when it was brought down over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev is struggling to quell a pro-Russian separatist rebellion.

Many of the passengers on the flight to Kuala Lumpur were tourists, but at least six were AIDS experts on their way to a conference in Melbourne, Australia on the deadly disease.

With 193 of the dead from the Netherlands, the Dutch have been taking a leading role in the international effort to recover and identify the bodies and investigate the cause of the crash.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday that Canberra would send 100 additional police and some defense force personnel to Europe to join a planned Dutch-led international security force to secure the crash site.

The Boeing 777 was shot down last week in eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board. Twenty-eight Australians were killed.