Russian President Vladimir Putin has angrily reacted to one of his country’s military jets being shot down by Turkey near the Syrian border on Tuesday.

Speaking at a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Sochi, a tense-looking Putin branded the shooting down of the aircraft a “stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists”.

“I cannot call what happened today anything else,” he said, accusing Turkey’s armed forces of essentially backing up the Islamic State group.

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“Today’s tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.

“We will of course carefully analyse everything that happened.”

Both military personnel on board ejected from the aircraft and are alive, say Turkey, after the incident for which Mr Putin vowed “serious consequences”.

A Turkish government official said: “Turkey has information that the two pilots are alive and right now Turkey is trying to recover them,” after conflicting reports emerged that at least one of the pilots could have died after parachuting down inside Syria.

Mr Putin rejected suggestions that the plane moved into Turkish airspace, saying it did not pose any threat. 

The plane pictured on its way to a fiery end. Photo: Getty

“Our plane was shot down over the territory of Syria by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 jet,” he said.

“It fell in Syrian territory four kilometres from the border with Turkey.

“Our pilots and our plane did not in any way threaten Turkey, that’s an obvious thing.”

He said the plane was shot down because it targeted members of an IS group.

“They were carrying out their immediate task of conducting preventative strikes against terrorists who could return to Russia any second.”

Mr Putin said Turkey, which is part of a US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State group, shot down the plane despite Moscow’s agreement with the United States to avoid such incidents.

“We will never tolerate such crimes,” he said.

Mr Putin was also unhappy at the fact that Turkey called a NATO meeting instead of reaching out to Moscow.

“It is as if we shot down a Turkish plane and not they ours,” he said.

“We always treated Turkey not only as a close neighbour but a friendly state. I don’t know who needed what was done today. Not us at least.”

He accused Turkish armed forces of backing up the IS jihadists.

“What, do they want to place NATO at the service of ISIL?” Putin said, referring to the IS group by another acronym.

The fighter jet was shot down on the Syrian border by two Turkish F-16s, with Ankara saying the plane had violated Turkish airspace 10 times within a five-minute period.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the country had to act against anyone violating its borders.

“Everyone must know that it is our international right and national duty to take any measure against whoever violates our air or land borders,” Mr Davutoglu said.

– with AAP