A chilling echo of Nazi death trains as piles of MH17 corpses are put into refrigerated rail carriages to begin the grimmest journey

The stench of death is thick in the air as onlookers peer inside a freight train containing the bodies of some 200 victims of the MH17 massacre.

The scene, a grim echo of the mechanized slaughter of millions in the Second World War, has been created by Russian separatists who have collected piles of corpses from the plane crash and put them in refrigerated rail carriages.

There was international outrage over the undignified scene last night – with swarms of flies buzzing around the train – although defiant local militia men insisted they were doing what they could for the dead.

Controversy is now raging over not only the conditions in which the corpses are being kept, but also fears that vital evidence of exactly what caused the tragedy is being lost.

It risks becoming a gruesome tussle over the dead.

Ukrainian sources said they feared the piles of corpses might be moved to Russia or used as a bargaining tool by rebel leaders.

The bodies, each inside individual body bags, were last night still on the stationary train at Torez station nine miles from the crash site.

Ukrainian officials in the city of Kharkiv, about four hours’ drive away, said there had been an agreement with rebel leaders for the bodies to next be taken there so they could be visited by grieving families.