A number of ships, including ferries with thousands of passengers on board, have become stuck in ice in the Baltic Sea, officials say.

The vessels are grounded in the waters between Stockholm and the Aland Islands, Radio Sweden reports.

Many of the vessels are not likely to be freed for hours, Swedish maritime authorities were quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

It is reportedly the worst Baltic freeze for 15 years.

Both Sweden and Finland have deployed ice breakers in the area to help the stranded vessels.

"The ice wouldn't usually be a problem for the merchant ships, the problem now is that it's very windy, about 20 metres per second," Jonas Lindvall, controller of the ice breaking unit at the Swedish maritime authorities, told Radio Sweden.

"That means that the ice is moving rapidly, there are lots of ridges with ice that's making it problematic for the ships, so they need help from the ice breakers," the controller said.

Four Viking Line ferries - which regularly shuttle thousands of passengers between Finland and Sweden - are among the vessels stuck.

Unconfirmed reports say the ferries collided with each other when they tried to manoeuvre in packs of ice.

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