Swedish police said Friday six people were temporarily detained for illegally entering the Libyan embassy in Stockholm following a demonstration against Moamer Kadhafi's regime there overnight.

"They forced their way into the embassy... Six people were arrested in total," Mats Almquist of the Stockholm police told AFP.

A police officer at the station where they were held said the protesters were released Friday morning but were still facing possible trespassing charges.

Some 20 people demonstrated overnight in front of the embassy, police said.

The protestors painted the green, black and red Libyan flag -- in use until Kadhafi came to power in 1969 and a symbol of the ongoing uprising in the country -- on the embassy's front and back doors.

On Friday, metal barricades were still in front of the building and a police car was on site, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Almquist said the first protesters to enter the embassy did so shortly before 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) Thursday.

Swedish media reported one demonstrator was arrested around that time, and that two others were arrested around 1:00 am Friday.

The demonstration then subsided, the TT news agency said, before starting up again overnight. Three other demonstrators were arrested at 4:30 am, also for forcing their way into the embassy.

"After contacting the foreign ministry... we got the approval to enter the embassy and made the arrests," Almquist said.

There have been protests outside the Swedish capital's Libyan embassy for some time, he added, but this was the first time protesters entered the building.

The protestors were demonstrating against the Kadhafi regime and calling for Sweden to shut down the embassy and expel the Kadhafi-appointed envoy.

The Swedish foreign ministry said Friday Sweden did not consider the embassy head, who has diplomatic status, as an ambassador, and that the foreign ministry had no contact or relationship with the person.

"It is a person sent by the regime who heads the embassy... we do not recognise, like France and other countries, the Kadhafi regime as representative of the Libyan people," foreign ministry spokesman Anders Joerle told AFP.

"The embassy, as a building, is a diplomatic institution and that is why the police must protect it," he added.