Sweden is to base a military aircraft - a Hercules C-130 - in Malta to assist in the evacuation of its nationals from Libya, informed sources said.

The government had given its go-ahead in line with humanitarian assistance given to all countries.

Just last week, Sweden’s Interior Minister Tobias Bilstrom and his Maltese counterpart Carm Mifsud Bonnici clashed at an EU ministers' meeting which discussed the possible influx of migrants as a result of the Libyan crisis.

Mr Bilstrom said that Italy’s request for burden sharing as “an exaggeration”,

He noted that last year his country received 32,000 asylum seekers.

“We did not call upon anyone to share the burden with us,” he said in a direct snub at Italy’s request.

“Italy has only received 5000 immigrants from Tunisia at Lampedusa and we think that it can cope on its own with this situation,” he said.

Asked by a journalist whether his country would help Malta and Italy in the case of a Libyan exodus, he said that this had not happened yet.

“With regards to Libya we have not seen any biblical exodus yet so let’s not be so alarmist,” he said.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici strongly dismissed the comments by Mr Billstrom. He insisted that there were already strong indications that the flow of migrants in the Mediterranean would be higher than in previous years.