'Missing' ferry passengers found at home after £150,000 sea search

A couple whose disappearance from a cross-Channel ferry sparked an international air and sea search were found in Belgium yesterday.

Kent Police confirmed that the man and woman have been spoken to on the telephone.

The pair, who are in their early 20s, sparked a international air-sea rescue operation when they failed to board their coach as it prepared to disembark a Dover-Calais ferry.

The crew of the P&O ferry Pride of Kent scoured the vessel twice before the sea search operation was launched at around 3am yesterday.

The seven-hour search involved the Coastguard, the RNLI and the French Navy.

A Kent Police spokesman said last night: "Two people who were reported missing in the early hours of this morning after getting on a ferry to France are tonight believed to be safe and well in Europe.

"Officers from Kent Police are confident they've located the two people, a man and a woman aged between 20 and 25.

"The alarm had been raised when the man and woman didn't get back on a coach they'd travelled on when it arrived in Calais.

"Police are now in the process of confirming their identities after managing to talk to both of them on the telephone in Belgium."

The pair had purchased one-way tickets for the Eurobusexpress coach service from London to Brussels shortly before it departed Victoria Coach Station at 9pm last night.

Police have not revealed how the pair reached Belgium.