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Jordanian warplanes hit and destroyed several vehicles trying to cross the border from Syria, a government spokesman said on Wednesday, underlining Amman's concern about incursions from areas controlled by Syrian rebels, Reuters reported.

A Jordanian security source said the targets appeared to have been Syrian rebels with machine guns mounted on civilian vehicles who were seeking refugee from fighting with government forces in southern Syria, but refused to elaborate.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said no Syrian vehicles were involved in the incident. "What was targeted by the Jordanian air force does not belong to the Syrian army," a military source was quoted by SANA as saying.

"There was an attempt to infiltrate across the border from Syria by a number of vehicles," said Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani, also a cabinet minister.

A Jordanian army statement said the incident took place at around 10:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. ET) when several camouflaged vehicles attempted to traverse rugged frontier terrain and disregarded warnings not to proceed.

"After repeated warnings that (we) would not allow a violation of the border, a number of air force planes sent warning shots towards the vehicles, but they did not heed these warnings and continued," the statement said.

"This forced the army to apply known engagement rules and to destroy the vehicles," it said.

Rebels dominate swathes of territory along Syria's southern border with Jordan but have been engaged in sometimes heavy fighting with Bashar al-Assad's forces in the region.