(Updates with Italy details, changes dateline, pvs CAIRO)

ROME, Nov 1 (Reuters) - At least 21 illegal migrants drowned last weekend in two separate incidents off southern Italy, the Italian coastguard said on Thursday.

Egyptian state news agency MENA reported earlier on Thursday that 22 people died off Italy and the death toll in the two shipwrecks could be more than 140 people. It did not give a time period for the incidents.

A spokesman at the Italian coastguard said there were 12 confirmed dead off the Sicilian town of Siracusa and nine dead off the province of Calabria.

Both incidents occurred overnight between Oct. 27-28 and he ruled out other significant shipwrecks.

He said he had no information to support the claim of up to 140 dead. Last weekend, Italian media reported many aboard the boats were believed to have swum to safety.

MENA quoted Egypt's Assistant Foreign Minister Ahmed el-Koweisni as saying the people aboard one of the boats had paid 25,000 Egyptian pounds ($4,600) each to the organisers of the trip. The survivors initially said they were Palestinians without travel documents but Egyptian consular officials established they were Egyptians.

Koweisni said the Italians believed the second boat was an Egyptian vessel named the al-Rizq ala Allah and that it sailed from Libya carrying Egyptians trying to reach Europe. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Wright in Cairo)

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