Three foreign tourists on a fishing trip were found dead overnight off the west coast of Norway, rescuers said on Monday.

The three, whose nationalities were not immediately disclosed, went missing on Sunday when they failed to return from a fishing trip.

A search team including a helicopter found their bodies during the night near their overturned rental boat, off the coast of Smola in western Norway.

"We don't know what happened but there are indications that they were in the water for several hours before we arrived," Andreas Bull, a duty officer at the Sola rescue centre, told AFP.