A small plane that crashed in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing at least four people on board, was contracted by the American military, the US embassy confirmed without further detail.

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The Philippine military said in a statement it could not release information about the crash on Mindanao island as the matter was classified and an investigation was ongoing.

Small numbers of American troops are put on short-term rotational deployments in the Philippines, where the US military has helped provide intelligence to troops battling militants linked to the Islamic State group that remains active on Mindanao.

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The US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii did not immediately respond to inquiries.

Regional police spokesman Jopy Ventura told AFP that officers had not yet determined the cause of the fixed-wing aircraft's crash on a farm near the municipality of Ampatuan.

None of the four known victims had so far been identified, he said, adding that police and soldiers had been deployed to the site to prevent potential tampering with evidence.

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The plane's tail number, identified by police as N349CA, was registered to defence firm Metrea, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware, which identified it as a Beechcraft Super King Air B300.

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The Metra website describes the company as a "leading provider of effects-as-a-service to national security partners across multiple domains and over a dozen mission areas".

Municipal rescuer Rhea Martin told AFP her team had found four dead bodies at the crash site.

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"The bodies were found near the plane," she told AFP, adding: "The plane was cut in half."

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