Police converged on the small town of Friendship with helicopters and search dogs after a reported sighting of two murderers who escaped from a maximum-security prison earlier this month.

A door-to-door search for the two escapees has been underway since June 6 after the men broke out of prison using hacksaw blades and chisels.

New York State Police spokesperson Beau Duffy told reporters that police established a perimeter around Friendship and its surrounding areas.

Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 35, were serving life sentences at the Clinton Correctional Facility close the Canadian border with the state of New York.

Matt was handed a prison sentence of 25 years to life for torturing and dismembering his former boss in 1997. Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for murdering a sheriff's deputy.

Friendship is a community of about 2,000 residents near New York's southwestern border with Pennsylvania, more than 250 miles (400 km) away from the prison.

On Friday, a state corrections officer at the prison was suspended in connection with the escape.

Authorities did not provide information on whether the corrections officer would face charges.

Joyce Mitchell, a training supervisor in the prison's tailor shop, has been charged with providing hacksaw blades to the murderers.

ls/cmk (Reuters, AP)