Sweden: Russian plane in near-collision

• A Swedish air force official says a flight from Denmark to Sweden had to change course


• Russia says its plane was more than 70 kilometers from the path of a passenger jet


• Sweden says Russian plane had its transponders turned off to avoid commercial radar

(CNN) -- A Russian military intelligence plane nearly collided with a commercial passenger jet south of Sweden on Friday, the Swedish air force chief said Sunday.

The incident in international airspace forced the passenger flight en route from Denmark to Sweden to change course, Maj. Gen. Micael Byden said.

Swedish fighter jets were immediately deployed to identify the aircraft and later determined it was a Russian intelligence plane, Byden said. He said the Russian military aircraft's transponders were turned off to avoid commercial radar.

But the Russian Defense Ministry refuted the notion that one of its warplanes nearly collided with a passenger jet.

"No prerequisites existed for an air accident related with a flight of a Russian warplane in the international air space over the Baltic Sea on Friday," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Sunday, according to the state-run TASS news agency.

"The flight was being made strictly in compliance with international air space rules, not violating borders of other countries and at a safe distance from traffic routes of civilian aircraft," he said. Konashenkov said the Russian plane was more than 70 kilometers (44 miles) from the flight route of a passenger jet.

NATO jets scrambled more than 400 times this year for Russian intercepts

CNN's Alla Eshchenko contributed to this report.