Ministry deputy permanent secretary Bunrat Wongyai said the inspectors, presently called "officials promoting good behaviour among schoolchildren and students", usually operated in pairs and always carried ID cards signed by the permanent secretary.

The ministry's advice follows the arrest of a 25-year-old gay man on Wednesday who confessed to posing as a school inspector to rob or detain and sexually abuse students or demand money for their release.

Surapong Trakulrak was yesterday remanded in custody after the Criminal Court turned down his request for bail.

He has been charged on three counts.

Bunrat yesterday referred to an incident last December in which a male student was kidnapped for several days, sexually molested and robbed by a man posing as a student inspector who accosted him while he was playing a video game at a shopping mall.

Yindee Panwaew-ngarm, director of the ministry's Semarak Centre, which regulates more than 380 such student inspectors in Bangkok and 5,800 others nationwide, said these officials always wore a uniform jacket provided by the centre and would never use illegal methods when dealing with students misbehaving either in private or in public.

These officials have no authority to detain students and in most cases have the parents or school come to pick the students up, he said.