Rescue teams were Wednesday scouring a remote mountainous area of Nepal where a passenger plane went missing with 21 people on board, two of them children.

Rescue teams were Wednesday scouring a remote mountainous area of Nepal where a passenger plane went missing with 21 people on board, two of them children.

Tara Air said the Twin Otter aircraft had lost contact with air traffic control eight minutes after taking off from the popular tourist town of Pokhara in western Nepal early on Wednesday.

The airline said the plane was carrying three crew and 18 passengers, one a Chinese and one a Kuwaiti national. All the others were from Nepal and two were children.

"We have dispatched three helicopters on a search and rescue mission. We will provide updates as they come," said a statement posted on its website.

It said weather conditions were good when the plane took off for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination in the Himalayas about 20 minutes' flight from Pokhara, which lies 225 kilometers (360 miles) west of Kathmandu.

"The weather at both origin and destination airports was favourable and the airport cleared for departure by the control tower at Pokhara," said the statement.

A Nepal Army spokesman, however, said fog was hampering the search for the Twin Otter plane.

"Our rescue teams have been deployed, but the weather was not clear in the morning," said army spokesman Tara Bahadur Karki.

The country, which is still reeling from a devastating earthquake last April, has suffered a number of air disasters in recent years, dealing a blow to its tourist industry.