PARIS - Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France airliner that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, Le Monde newspaper said on its website on Tuesday.

An Air France spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report.

Le Monde said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the black boxes and that a mini submarine had been dispatched on Monday to try and find them on the bottom of the rugged ocean floor.

The black boxes may contain vital information that could help explain what happened when the Airbus A330 aircraft crashed into the sea en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1.

(Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by Ralph Gowling)