The 43-year-old Norwegian woman was last seen on Christmas Eve and a police search using divers has meanwhile been halted.

Divers had searched the town’s harbour, which is located close to the area where the woman was last seen. Landskrona is located in southern Sweden between Helsingborg and Malmö.

Police in Sweden are investigating the Norwegian woman’s disappearance as a kidnapping, media in both countries report.

She was last seen accompanied by a man between 10pm on Christmas Eve and 2am on Christmas Day.

“The more time that passes, the stranger it gets. We need new leads and information in order to move forwards,” Richard Lundqvist, press spokesperson with the Swedish police in Region South, told NRK.

“The woman was seen with a man. We are not going to say anything further about who the man is. But that was the last sign of life, and it happened during the course of these four hours [10pm-2am, ed.] on the night before Christmas Day,” Lundqvist added.

“We are interested in all observations, let the police determine what is interesting. As long as we have nothing to investigate, we can’t move forward. We have a mobile telephone belonging to the woman which is being investigated,” he continued.

Swedish police are using a “working hypothesis” that the woman was kidnapped and that they are therefore searching for a living person, NRK writes.

“There has not been anything specific or any evidence (that she is the victim of a crime), this is a working hypothesis. But as time passes without anyone seeing or hearing from her, suspicion increases that something criminal may have happened,” Lundqvist told NRK.

Police added that they have not ruled out that the woman may have disappeared intentionally.

Charity Fik, founded to assist in crisis situations, organized a search which took place on Sunday.

The search took place in the harbour area and nearby coast and forest, an organizer said.

“The woman has not been found there in spite of a comprehensive search, but we can’t rule out that she might be there,” said Peder Schillerström Bruun, a senior volunteer with Fik, told TT.

Areas visible from the air were meanwhile searched using drones provided by another organization, Svenska räddningsdrönare.

But the search did not provide any new leads for the police investigation, NRK reports.