The White House says Russia has a "clear legal basis" to expel a whistleblower hiding out in a Moscow airport despite President Vladimir Putin's refusal to do so.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said even without an extradition treaty, Russia should expel Edward Snowden to face espionage charges in the US.
Mr Putin rejected calls to hand Snowden over to US officials, saying he was in a transit area of Sheremetyevo airport and had not officially crossed into the Russian border.
The 30-year-old was free to leave the country when he likes and should do so as soon as possible, Mr Putin said, adding that the visit was "unexpected."
He said: "Mr Snowden is a free man, the sooner he selects his final destination point, the better for us and for himself."
Reports on Monday had said Snowden was staying in a 'pod'-style hotel room in an airport VIP area.
Snowden's route since leaving Hawaii, with possible destinations Mr Putin said Russian security agencies "didn't work and aren't working" with Snowden - dismissing any such claims as "ravings and rubbish".
He said the fact that Russia has no extradition agreement with the US meant it would not be meeting the American request to send him there.
However, he said he hoped the stopover will not affect its relationship with the US.
The former CIA technician, who has worked for the National Security Agency, has been charged with espionage by US authorities after he leaked details of American telephone and internet surveillance programmes.
He revealed the existence of a surveillance system called Prism that was set up by the NSA to track the use of the web directly from internet providers.
The Prism revelations sparked outcry in the UK when The Guardian reported that the GCHQ eavesdropping agency had been accessing information about British citizens.
Snowden is said to have been staying in a 'pod' room at Moscow airport Evidence given to the paper by Snowden also suggested that GCHQ has been scanning the UK's network of fibre-optic cables that carry vast numbers of emails and other internet traffic.
Earlier, Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Snowden had not crossed into Russian territory - and he said any suggestion that Russia was involved in "some sort of conspiracy" was "absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable".
His comments came after China's top state newspaper - the voice of the communist party - praised the whistleblower for "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask".
The People's Daily, which reflects the official thinking of the Chinese government, criticised America for attacking Hong Kong's decision to allow him to flee.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has called for Russia to be "calm" and hand over Snowden. He said Washington was not looking for "confrontation."
Snowden left Hong Kong on Sunday, hours after the US had provided the territory with a request for extradition.
He was widely expected to fly from Moscow to Cuba and then on to Ecuador, possibly via Venezuela. Ecuador's foreign minister said on Tuesday he did not know where Snowden was.
On Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Hong Kong had made a "deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the US-China relationship".
Mr Kerry has dubbed Snowden a traitor, and warned both Russia and China that their relations with the US might be damaged by their refusal to extradite him.
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