The Melbourne-educated daughter of Malaysia Airlines pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah has lashed out at a British newspaper for “making up stories” that claimed her father was in emotional turmoil over the break-up of his marriage.

“May God have mercy on your souls. You can bet I will not forgive you,” Aishah Zaharie, 28, told the Daily Mail newspaper in a Facebook posting.

As speculation swirled around the pilots of the ill-fated airliner with 239 people on board, Ms  Zaharie had previously only made comments through friends, who said the family was devastated.

But she took to Facebook after the Mail on Sunday quoted her as saying that in her last conversations with her father she barely knew him.

“He wasn’t the father I knew. He seemed disturbed and lost in a world of his own,” the newspaper claimed she had said.

Mohammad Ghouse, a friend of Captain Zaharie, said he had spoken to all members of the family, who said the report was “a total lie”.

“They cannot come out in the open to refute, they are not able to surface ... could you imagine the nightmare that these irresponsible people are causing them?” Dr Ghouse said.

A Malaysian police spokesman appealed to the media to be sensitive to the plight of the family.

Intense scrutiny of Captain Zaharie, 53, had failed to reveal anything suspicious, police said. His flight simulator was forensically examined by the FBI, which found nothing out of the ordinary.