At least two Britons have been injured in Egypt after their bus overturned and burst into flames on a desert highway.

The crash in the Sinai peninsula killed at least nine people and injured 30 others.

The Foreign Office (FO) is still trying to determine just how many Britons were on board the bus, which was carrying Canadians, Italians and tourists from Eastern Europe.

One Romanian and one Russian are believed to be among the dead.

The FO said "at least two Britons" had been on the bus and that these two had been visited in hospital by British consular staff.

A spokeswoman said: "Neither of the two was seriously hurt and we are in touch with their families."

The bus was travelling from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to the Egyptian capital Cairo when it overturned.

Some passengers jumped to safety while others suffered severe burns after a fire turned the bus into a burnt-out shell.

Diana Argentieri, a 27-year-old Italian factory worker holidaying in Egypt with friends, said the bus rolled over three or four times.

She said: "It all seems like a nightmare, but unfortunately it's real. The bus was going very fast and the road was in (a) bad condition. We were immediately scared by the speed."

She added the bus rolled off the road, down an incline and onto a rocky spur. As she made for an exit "there was a person on the floor, lying still, and other people bleeding".

Ms Argentieri went on: "We wanted to go back in to see if there was still somebody alive, but the bus was on fire."

Driver Ali Haridi said he lost control of the bus on a sharp curve in the highway at Abu Zenima, an area about 40 miles south east of the Suez Canal.

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