Tehran last week identified the drone as an RQ-170 Sentinel and said it was captured over the east of the country.

Iranian Defence Minister, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, said: "Their plane invaded Iran and Iranian forces reacted powerfully. Now, instead of offering an apology to the Iranian nation, they impudently ask for the return of the plane."

US officials say the unmanned aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran.

President Obama said on December 9 that the US wanted the surveillance aircraft back and has delivered a formal request for its return.

Hours after Obama's request, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reiterated his minister's comments. "The Americans have perhaps decided to give us this spy plane," he said in an interview broadcast live on Monday night on Venezuelan state television. "We now have control of this plane."

There are fears that the drone's database could be hacked, although it is not clear whether any data could be retrieved – some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data, but if they do, it is encrypted.

(Guardian/VOV Online)