Two crew members on an Albanian tugboat have died during the operation to secure the fire-hit Greek ferry from which hundreds of people were rescued and 10 people died, Albanian authorities said.

The sailors were apparently hit by a rope they had been trying to attach to the Norman Atlantic, which has been drifting rudderless near the Albanian port of Vlore, according to police and the defence ministry.

Rescuers have been searching the waters around the crippled Greek ferry and below deck for more possible victims amid confusion over how many people were aboard.

The death toll had already climbed to at least 10, and Italian and Greek helicopter rescue crews evacuated the last of the known survivors aboard the fire-blackened vessel, bringing the number rescued to 427.

But there were serious discrepancies in the ship's manifest, and officials warned there could still be people missing.

The vessel's operator, Anek Lines, said 475 were on the ferry, but Italian officials said the names on the manifest might have represented just reservations, not actual passengers who boarded.

Italian admiral Giovanni Pettorino said 80 of those rescued were not on the list, giving credence to suggestions from the Italian premier that the ferry might have been carrying a number of immigrants illegally trying to reach Italy.

Italian transport minister Maurizio Lupi said: "We cannot say how many people may be missing."

The blaze broke out on the car deck of the Norman Atlantic while the ferry was travelling from the Greek port of Patras to Ancona in Italy. The cause of the fire is under investigation and salvage crews have gone aboard to assess the damage.

The fire caused thick, acrid smoke to fill cabins, waking passengers on the overnight ferry from Greece to Italy.

In the chaos that followed, passengers said they received virtually no instructions from the crew.

The principle of women and children first went out of the window, and passengers started pushing and shoving and came to blows over seats in the lifeboats and helicopter baskets.

"Everyone there was trampling on each other to get on to the helicopter," Greek truck driver Christos Perlis said.

Another Greek passenger, Irene Varsioti, said: "The jungle law prevailed. There was no queue or order. No respect was shown for children."

Greek truck driver Afrosini Bezati feared several colleagues had died because they chose to sleep in their rigs where the fire broke out rather than take cabins upstairs.

"I considered doing the same thing, to leave my room after having a shower and going down to sleep in the truck," she said as she arrived at Elefsina air force base near Athens aboard a military plane. "They were stuck and could not get out."

The Italian military congratulated itself for a remarkable around-the-clock rescue operation in horrendous weather - 40 knot (46mph) winds, high seas, choking smoke and the dark of the Adriatic night.

Hundreds of passengers, crew members and two dogs were plucked from the decks in helicopter baskets as the fire raged below.

As they waited to be rescued, they were drenched by cold winter rain and firefighting hoses, while their feet burned from the flames below.

Greek passenger Chrysostomos Apostolou, a civil engineer who had been on holiday with his wife and sons, aged eight and 14, said: "I witnessed an image of hell as described by Dante, on a ship where the decks were melting and we were trying to find some place that was not burning to stand on."

Some passengers suffered hypothermia, others mild carbon monoxide poisoning, but the first big group to reach land - 49 people who came ashore in Bari just after dawn yesterday - walked off the rescue ship on their own, exhausted and draped in blankets to ward off the cold.

Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi hailed the Italian ferry captain, Argilio Giacomazzi, for staying on board to see the evacuation through, in striking contrast to the skipper in Italy's last maritime disaster.

Captain Francesco Schettino is on trial on charges of manslaughter and leaving the ship early in the 2012 wreck of the Costa Concordia, in which 32 people were killed.

But passengers had no praise for the mostly Italian crew, complaining they were left to fend for themselves.