FOUR cases where police had allegedly held tourists' passports without cause or justification were reported yesterday to Phuket's Police Commander, Major General Pekad Tantipong.

The cases involved Irish, Norwegian, German and Australian tourists, the special ''Phuket Parliament'' at Provincial Hall in Phuket City was told.

Major General Pekad had told the meeting that all Phuket police stations had been told to report every case where a tourist's passport was held for alleged offences other than those involving drugs or violence.

He said that he had had no reports from police of passports being held in other circumstances in the three months since the previous gathering of honorary consuls.

However, four honorary consuls cited recent instances where their citizens claimed passports had been held without proper reason. Major General Pekad undertook to investigated the cases.

Germany's honorary consul, Dirk Naumann, said there was one case involving a German last week at Patong police station. Helene Fallon-Wood, the honorary consul for Ireland, said that in the case of one Irish citizen, police took a week to report the matter.

The Norwegian honorary consul's office also reported a case involving a Norwegian citizen.

Australian honorary consul Larry Cunningham said there had been a case involving an Australian who agreed to pay 250,000 baht compensation after a traffic accident, ''then the girlfriend of a policeman telephoned to say he had to pay 100,000 baht to get his passport back.''

At Kathu police station, the officer involved said there may have been ''a misunderstanding,'' Mr Cunningham said, and the claim for cash quickly vanished.

''Perhaps no cases are being reported but this may be what is going on,'' Mr Cunningham said.