Madagascar's ousted president Marc Ravalomanana Saturday vowed to go back to his country by any means after he was stopped from leaving South Africa by the "illegal regime" in Antananarivo.

"I will find a way to get back to Madagascar. My staff are working on every alternative means of getting me back to my country," Ravalomanana said in a statement after he was refused a boarding pass at Johannesburg airport.

Accompanied by his wife, three sons, daughter and his staff, Ravolomanana had arrived at OR Tambo airport two hours before his Airlink flight was scheduled to take off at 0800 GMT.

Instead of checking in, he was shown a letter from the aviation authority in Antananarivo which read: "Mr Ravolomanana Marc and company are non grata persons in Madagascar. So to preserve public order don't take them aboard."

"I am shocked and disappointed to have been turned away by the illegal regime this morning. This is an abuse of power by the illegal regime in Madagascar and proof of their persistent unilateral decisions to refuse me entry into my own country," Ravalomanana said.

In Madagascar, several thousand Ravalomanana supporters had converged on Ivato airport, a few kilometres (miles) outside the capital to welcome the ousted president.

The news that he was grounded in Johannesburg was slow to reach the large crowds massing behind a police cordon, waving posters of their leader and singing hymns.

"We are fed up after two years of this transition," said Vohirana, a 35-year-old Ravalomanana loyalist, referring to the shaky rule of Andry Rajoelina, who ousted the elected president in March 2009.

Convinced that "their president" would make a heroic homecoming later in the afternoon, droves of supporters continued to walk down the main airport road, blocking traffic, under the watchful eye of police in full anti-riot gear.

They waited patiently for hours, until finally the arrival of a South African Airways flight containing one of Ravalomanana's lawyers dashed their hopes and they began drifting away.

Alain Ramaroson, a senior official in Rajoelina's transition, said he thought the ousted president knew all along he would not be allowed to land in Madagascar, describing Ravalomanana's move as a stunt.

"He was expecting this ban," said Ramaroson.

"There is no place for him here... The wounds are still raw, it is preferable he stay at bay," said the official, who heads the defence and security committee in the upper house of parliament.

Ravalomanana said in Johannesburg he intended to rekindle "Malagasy-to-Malagasy dialogue in order to restore peace".

"I know there are hundreds of thousands of supporters at the airport in Antananarivo awaiting my return today. These people are not only my supporters, but from all sectors of civil society," he said.

Ravalomanana, who has spent the past two years in exile, mainly in South Africa, announced Thursday that he would return to his homeland on Saturday, insisting he was still the island's rightful leader.

"I return to my country humbly, so that we can return to democracy, and together create a bright future for Madagascar," he told reporters.

"I know the risks facing my return, but cannot allow them to get in the way of us restoring democracy. I have nothing to fear. I have done nothing wrong," he added.

The 61-year-old self-made millionaire was last year sentenced in absentia to life in prison and hard labour for the death of 30 opposition protesters killed by presidential guards as they attempted to march on the presidential palace in February 2009.

The sentencing was Ravalomanana's third since his ouster. He was previously handed a four-year jail term and a fine for a case of conflict of interest in the purchase of a 60-million-dollar presidential jet and five years' hard labour over a land purchase.

While the autocratic Ravalomanana was criticised during his seven-year graft-tainted tenure, Rajoelina has failed to secure international recognition.

The deadlock has left the island nation in a political and economic limbo that foreign mediations and home-grown dialogue alike have been unable to break.