American passport was lost while she was on a boat owned by Carnival Cruise Lines.

Ms Janice Swainson said she has called the cruise line and the American consulate but so far no one has been able to locate the passport that went missing three weeks ago.

Ms Swainson's two daughters -- Latoyia, 15 and Lanan, 16, -- were passengers on a week-long Caribbean cruise with the Bermuda Girls in Training last month.

There were 14 women altogether including the group leaders.

The boat took them to San Juan, Puerto Rico; Guadeloupe, Grenada, Venezuela and Aruba.

"They were all quite happy until they reached the final port in Puerto Rico,'' Ms Swainson explained. "They went to collect their passports and they were given them back, but Latoyia's was not there.'' Consequently, the authorities told Latoyia that she could not travel back to Bermuda.

"It was really chaos down there,'' Ms Swainson said. "My older daughter Lanan called me because LaToyia was so distraught and the leaders were trying to pacify her.

"I tried to reach local authorities, but I couldn't reach anyone. I called the Deputy Governor but his number was unpublished which doesn't make any sense because he has such an important position.

Mrs. Swainson said she was frantic because there were no flights to the United States that evening so she had to wait until the following morning.

"The ship's executive were totally unconcerned. They did not even offer to pick up the tab for the missed flight even though it was their fault that the passport was missing.

"They collected the girls' passports when they got on the boat at the beginning of the cruise.

"My children had to be put up in some strange hotel and Carnival Cruise Lines couldn't care less. I am so disgruntled. The whole experience was very agonising.'' Fortunately, Latoyia was able to get an American Airlines flight and used her re-entry letter from the Immigration Department to get back into Bermuda.

Meantime, Carnival Cruise Lines spokeswoman Ms Jacquie Crockhet said that since Latoyia had an America passport it was not taken.

"As far as we know we never had her passport,'' Ms Crockhet said. "The only passports we take at the beginning of a cruise would be passports from a foreign country.

"We do not take American passports.'' Ms Crockhet said that cruise officials did a thorough investigation and questioned both the embarkation and purser's staff to see if the passport had been taken accidentally.

"She would have had to come through one of our embarkation lines to get on the ship but our embarkation staff do not take American passports. We hold all our passports in a central area. If one was lost they all would be lost. We checked both the embarkation and purser's offices and it was not there.'' However, Ms Swainson claimed Carnival Cruises were not admitting their error because all members of the Bermudian contingent handed in their passports together.

"We have identified who took it but I guess because her job may be on the line she is denying that she took it,'' Ms Swainson said.

"I have spoken to the American Consulate who have placed a stop on her (Latoyia's) passport because an American passport is a hot item in many of the poorer Caribbean islands.'' MISSING PASSPORT -- Latoyia Swainson, 15, claims that she gave her American passport to an official when she went on a Caribbean cruise last month and they lost it. Carnival Cruise Lines deny they ever took it.