Sorry for the delay I've been very busy this week :-(
So, of course you cannot check anything related to WAS via telnet but networking configuration... The message you see in your log means that there is no virtualhost that handles requests to IBM admin console, so:
a) check your trace.log file or System.out file.
You should find something like the following:
Web Module Integrated Solutions Console has been bound to admin_host[*:9061,*:9044].
If not, I'm afraid that somehow you did not install ISC when creating your WAS profile or that you disinstalled ISC.
If you find such message, please have a look at the port admin host is bounded to. In my case admin host responds to ports 9061 and 9044. you can telnet localhost port and see if something is responding.
If nothing responds on that port, or WAS was not able to bind to these ports or something went definitevely wrong. Fixing that may not be very simple, you should edit and work with XML files of WAS configuration.. or simply create a new WAS profile and work with it.