The Washington Post said that the families of some of the 239 people onboard the missing Boeing 777 claimed to have heard the mobile ringtones.
"In some cases, the relatives could see them active online through a local Chinese networking site called QQ," the Post reported.
The eerie development comes even as Malaysian authorities described MH370's disappearance an unprecedented mystery.
One man told the Washington Post that his brother-in-law's QQ account indicated that he was online.
Frustratingly for those desperate for some news or sign, messages have gone unanswered and calls were not picked up.
Search and rescue (SAR) operation involving 10 countries has so far failed to find any trace of the missing airliner.
Britain's Daily Mail reported that the phantom phone calls and online presence had set off a new level of hysteria among relatives and next-of-kin, most of whom have spent three days cooped up at a Beijing Hotel waiting for news on the missing plane.
MAS officials in Beijing have been told repeatedly about the QQ accounts and ringing telephone calls, and relatives are hoping that SAR forces will be able to triangulate the GPS signals of the phones to locate their loved ones.
Bian Liangwei, sister of one of the passengers aboard MH370, claimed that she was able to reach her elder brother's phone.
"This morning, around 11:40am, I called my older brother's number twice, and I got the ringing tone," she told the International Business Times.
At 2pm, Bian called again and again heard its ring tone.
"If I could get through, the police could locate the position, and there is a chance he could still be alive," she said.
However, at a press conference in Beijing, MAS spokesman Ignatius Ong said one of the numbers provided to the airline's head office in Kuala Lumpur had failed to get through.
"I myself have called the number five times while the airline's command centre also called the number. We got no answering tone," Ong said.
Search for the missing plane has now moved to the Straits of Malacca, some 100 miles away from where it was last recorded by electronic monitoring devices.
The dramatic shift raises the possibility that it flew undetected, crossing mainland Malaysia, before ditching into the sea.
MAS said Malaysia's western coast near the Straits of Malacca was now the focus of the hunt.
Civil aviation chief Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, however, said the statement didn't imply authorities believed the plane was off the western coast.
"The search is on both sides," he said.
The plane was carrying 239 people when it vanished off radar screens early Saturday morning en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, triggering a massive international search effort.
Authorities have expanded their search to include areas where the plane could have in theory ended up given the amount of fuel it had on board.
On Sunday, Malaysia's air force chief said military radar indicated that the jet might have turned back before disappearing.
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WHY ARE THE PASSENGERS' PHONES STILL RINGING?
After three days, wouldn’t the phone batteries be dead by now?
Not necessarily. Smartphones are renowned for their poor battery life and will typically last up to around 24 hours. But the batteries of older phones can last considerably longer.
For example, the Nokia 100 boasts a standby battery life of a staggering 35 days. Smartphone batteries can also last longer if the handset isn’t being used, and especially if the phone is in Flight Mode.
However, if the phone is in Flight Mode, it switches off all wireless activity meaning calls wouldn’t be able to connect, effectively ruling out this theory.
If the phone batteries are dead, wouldn’t the call go straight to voicemail?
In a word, yes. However, the process of sending the call to voicemail can differ depending on the service provider.
For example, the majority of phones will go straight to voicemail, or callers will get an out of service message if voicemail hasn’t been set up.
This will occur even if the phone is underwater, or not near a cell signal.
However, some service providers will ring once or twice before the phone goes to voicemail, or cut off. This may explain the reports that claimed phones rang before seeming to hang up.
Some reports claim the phones are just ringing and ringing though. How is this possible?
Telecoms expert Alan Spencer told MailOnline that if the phones are really ringing, they can categorically not be under the sea.
He added that the phones will only be ringing if they are ‘switched on, not in water, the battery is charged, and [they are] near a mobile cell site.’
This means that if the phones are genuinely ringing, the plane needs to have landed on land – not in the sea – and be in a location where there is cell service, rather than landing in the middle of a jungle, for example.
Why can’t network operators locate the phones?
A number of family members have asked the network operators why they can’t use the phone’s signal to locate the missing people.
Professor William Webb, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, told MailOnline: ‘The phones definitely won't be working. They'll be underwater, out of coverage and by this time out of battery.
‘So there's absolutely no way they could be used for triangulation.
‘As to why they are ‘ringing’ it'll be the same as if they were out of coverage - in some cases it may ring before going to voicemail.’
What about the T3212 timer I’ve read about?
The T3212 is a timer that causes a phone to periodically send a message to the network saying where it is.
But Professor Webb said this only works when the phone is turned on and it is in coverage. It won't work when the battery is dead.
What about reports that passengers are appearing online, on the QQ social network?
When people sign into social networks including QQ, as well as Facebook, they appear online.
This is the case whether they’ve signed in on a phone, tablet, PC, and laptop.
If missing passengers are shown as online, they may not be using the service on their phone. Instead they may still be logged in on another device.
If this other device shuts down or goes into standby, however, or there is a long period of inactivity, the social network will log them out, which may explain why some accounts went from online to offline over a period of three days.
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