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An airline has apologised to a passenger after the ashes of both his late parents were lost in transit as he took a flight from Italy to Ireland.

Bob Gilmour, who lives in Tasmania, is due to scatter his parents' ashes during separate ceremonies in Northern Ireland and England this week.

The Gilmour family flew to Dublin with Aer Lingus on Saturday but their bags, containing the ashes, did not arrive.

Aer Lingus said on Tuesday night that the bags have now been found in Milan.

But during the three-day hunt for the missing luggage the family faced the prospect of attending funeral services without the ashes.

Before their deaths, Mr Gilmour's parents had requested that their ashes be scattered in their respective birthplaces in the UK.

His father, Samuel Gilmour was originally from Ballymena, County Antrim, and his English mother, Marjorie, was from Birmingham.

The couple met in England during World War Two when they were both serving with the Royal Air Force (RAF).

They married and settled down in County Antrim, before emigrating to Australia in 1967 with their two sons.

Bob Gilmour, who spent the first 11 years of his life growing up in Northern Ireland, booked his father's memorial ceremony in Ballymena on Wednesday.

A cousin still living in the County Antrim town commissioned a plaque for the event, engraved with the words: "Samuel Gilmour, a Ballymena boy come home at last."

A ceremony to commemorate his mother is due to take place in England on Friday.

, Bob Gilmour said: "So I now have a funeral service to go to in Ulster tomorrow and a funeral service to go to in Birmingham on Friday, but we have no bodies."

The ceremonies were arranged with UK relatives to coincide with a family trip to Europe, after Mr Gilmour's daughter was offered a place at a Milan ballet school.

The family flew from Milan to Dublin on Saturday, but when they arrived at the Aer Lingus luggage carousel, they found out all four of their bags were missing.

Mr Gilmour's luggage contained not only the ashes but also personal mementos of his parents.

Initially, two of the bags were located and returned to the family, but they did not include the bag with the ashes.

Mr Gilmour described the airline's response to the incident as "less than useless".

In a statement on Tuesday night, an Aer Lingus spokeswoman said the missing baggage has been located in Milan Malpensa Airport.

"Regrettably, it was not loaded onto the Aer Lingus flight by the baggage handlers at Malpensa Airport.

"The baggage will now arrive overnight into Dublin Airport where it will be immediately transported to the family. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused."