Finnish President Sauli Niinistö will hold a press conference on Friday afternoon to discuss Finland's role in the investigation into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The press conference is scheduled for 4.15 pm at the Presidential Palace. Yle will carry it live online.

Niinistö is to clarify Finland's involvement in a secret test firing of a Buk missile similar to the one believed to have downed the passenger jet over eastern Ukraine in July 2014. All of the 298 people on board the flight died.

The Finnish Defence Forces have previously used the Russian-made missiles.

Classified test due to sensitive Russia-Finland relations

On Tuesday the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the missile test was carried out in Finland, but that it was kept classified due to the sensitive relations between Russia and Finland.

On Thursday Soini told Yle that he did not believe that the investigation would affect bilateral relations between Finland and Russia.

On Friday afternoon, the largest daily Helsingin Sanomat quoted Gerrit Thiry of the Dutch national criminal investigation service as saying that Finland did not allow the test data to be shared with the international team investigating the crash.

The panel released an interim report on Wednesday, which said that the plane was hit by a Russian Buk missile. Moscow has angrily rejected the team's findings.

Estonian foreign minister in for talks

Earlier on Friday, Soini and Niinistö met with Estonia's new foreign minister Jürgen Ligi in Helsinki.

The two foreign ministers discussed security in the Baltic Sea region and EU affairs, among other issues.

Ligi, who was education minister, took over the post recently when ex-foreign minister Marina Kaljurand stepped down to run for president as an independent candidate.