Authorities received a report last Tuesday that the soldiers had disappeared during a military drill in the eastern city of Pabrade, near the border with Belarus.

Search and rescue teams used heavy equipment and excavators to remove silt from the body of water where the vehicle was located and managed to attach cables to tow it out of the swamp.

"The vehicle has been recovered," Lithuanian Armed Forces chief General Raimundas Vaiksnoras said on Monday on social media.

"I ask for everyone's respect and solidarity as we await further information from our US colleagues," he added.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene said "the US side will make a public announcement when it has all the necessary information and only after informing the soldiers' families".

"Let us be sensitive to the families of the soldiers, who need to know the circumstances of the events from the rescuers and not from the media," she added in a Facebook post.

Sakaliene said the towing operation was completed at 4:30 am local time (0130 GMT) and the Lithuanian military police and US investigators were "currently working at the scene".

"If the recovery of the vehicle does not provide all the answers, the work will have to continue," she added.

Hundreds of local and foreign troops and other rescue workers including engineers and divers had been involved in a rescue operation to recover the M88 Hercules armoured vehicle.

Lithuania, a NATO and EU member, hosts more than 1,000 American troops stationed on a rotational basis.