TWO Swedes, trapped on Phuket without money and faced with mounting debt, are likely to need a generous benefactor to pluck them to safety.

With Christmas just days away, the prospects of luckless Bjorn Lennart Lundqvist, 59, and Gabriella Rose-Marie Strand, 58, remaining trapped in Thailand should alarm many Swedes.

A spokesman for the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok today rejected suggestions that the unfortunate couple were about to be deported.

''That would be something for the Thai courts,'' he said. ''There is a difference between deportation, and repatriation.''

The spokesman said that efforts were being made to find a relative in Sweden who would pay for the cost of an airfare home, and possibly other costs involved in repatriating the couple.

''Only if there is no relative or other person who can help them will we consider funding their flight home,'' he said.

And the Thais would have to be sympathetic to the case of the couple, who appear to be down and out in a foreign country with little hope of rescue.

Accrued debts and a permit to stay that expired in January mean the couple could face a lengthy stay in a Thai jail if someone presses charges against them.

Swedish consular officials are obliged to follow due process lest their actions convey the impression that a paid seat home awaits every Swede who spends all his or her money abroad.

Other embassies will be watching, too, to see how the couple's difficult plight is resolved.

It is not uncommon for travellers to Thailand to suffer mild euphoria in the holiday sunshine, leading them to overspend or fail to take vital medication.

The Swedish couple, apparently destitute, were found on a footpath in Kata on Wednesday. They are now being held in cells at Phuket's Immigration headquarters.

A spokesman for Immigration said the couple were not likely to face charges, despite their extended overstay.