US authorities are rushing to notify 131 other passengers on board the commercial flight that carried a Texas nurse, a day before she reported having Ebola symptoms.
The Frontier Airlines 1142 flight travelled from Dallas-Fort Worth airport to Cleveland on 10 October.
Nurse Amber Vinson then took a return trip on Frontier flight 1143 on 13 October.
Officials said the Dallas native has been isolated after overnight results confirmed she has tested positive for Ebola.
Ms Vinson is part of team of 77 people who treated Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, a Liberian who died from Ebola on 8 October.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the nurse should not have been travelling by air under the centre's guidelines.
"The CDC guidance in this setting outlines the need for what is called controlled movement. That can include a charter plane; that can include a car; but it does not include public transport," Director Tom Frieden said.
He vowed that the agency would be taker stricter measures to ensure medical staff treating Ebola patients follow the CDC self-monitoring guidelines.
“We will, from this moment forward, ensure that no other individual who is being monitored for exposure undergoes travel in any way other than controlled movement."
More US Ebola cases expected
Mr Friedman says officials are planning for the possibility of more infected healthcare workers in coming days.
The CDC says about 50 healthcare workers are being monitored for potential Ebola symptoms, after they entered Thomas Duncan’s room during his treatment.
Another 48 people are also being monitored after they had contact with Duncan during his stay with friends and family in a Dallas apartment last month.
Nurses union concerned over repeated protocol breaches
Nurse Nina Pham, 26, became the first person to be infected with Ebola in the United States.
Texas Health Resources, which owns the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital at the centre of the Ebola cases, says Nina Pham remains in "good condition".
But the nurses union, National Nurses United, said the repeated breaches of protocol at the hospital underlined a bigger problem of a lack of proper training of staff and the inadequate provision of protection gear.
"The nurses strongly feel unsupported, unprepared, lied to, and deserted to handle the situation on their own," a statement from National Nurses United said.
The nurses cited examples of hazardous waste "piled to the ceiling" because no-one had disposed of it properly, Reuters reported.
Texas Health Resources said it is responding to the nurses' concerns, but added that they had found no evidence of a systemic problem.
"I don't think we have a systematic institutional problem," Dr Daniel Varga told reporters.
The plane that carried Amber Vinson has been taken out of service. In a statement, the airline said the plane had been subjected to "a thorough cleaning per our normal procedures which is consistent with CDC guidelines".
US President Barack Obama has postponed a planned visit to Connecticut and New Jersey, choosing instead to hold a cabinet meeting to review the government's response to the cases of Ebola.
The World Health Organisation says 4,493 people have died from Ebola since the first reported case in Guinea in March. The body warns the number of cases could reach 10,000 a week by the year's end.
Federal opposition renews call for Ebola aid
The federal opposition says the scale of the outbreak requires that Australia immediately send a medical team to fight the deadly virus.
Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said she has written to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Health Minister Peter Dutton, urging the government to urgently deploy medical teams to the region.
The government has so far donated $18 million to aid efforts to contain the spread of the virus.
But Ms Plibersek said money alone is not enough.
"Australia does have the capacity to help. We have got Australian medical assistance teams, for example, that could be deployed," she told ABC Radio.
"Other countries have also deployed defence personnel. For example, the United States is sending around 4,000 personnel. The UK is sending around 750 personnel. And they're able to do things like build temporary hospitals."
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