BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — British glam rocker Gary Glitter was refused entry into Thailand, officials said Wednesday, a day after the convicted child molester was freed by Vietnam following nearly three years in prison.

The 64-year-old Glitter arrived at Bangkok, Thailand’s international airport after Vietnam deported him. But he refused to board a connecting flight to London and officials denied him entry into Thailand, a senior immigration official told The Associated Press.

Glitter was confined to an airport transit lounge, police Maj. Gen. Phongdej Chaiprawat said. Phongdej said he did not known Glitter’s next destination but that it was the responsibility of Thai Airways International, the national carrier on which Glitter was flying, to fly him out of Thailand.

Another Thai immigration official at the airport said his department received a note from Vietnam and Interpol requesting that Glitter not be allowed entry into Thailand. The official spoke on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The immigration official said Glitter refused to board the London-bound plane, complaining of an ear ache. Immigration officials, he said, gave the airline permission to take Glitter to an airport clinic where the doctor checked his complaint. He was then returned to the airport’s transit area.

The chief of immigration police, Lt. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomchit, said Thai laws allow officials to deny entry to anyone convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country.

“Officials concerned are working through the process of putting him on the plane to take him out of the country but if he continues to refuse to leave then he will confined in the (transit) area temporarily before being taken into a detention center,” he said.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was convicted in March 2006 of committing “obscene acts with children.” He served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence, which was reduced for good behavior.

The incidents involved two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau.

In a recent interview with Vietnamese newspaper Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police), Glitter said he was thinking about resuming his singing career and that he might move to Hong Kong or Singapore. His lawyer, Le Thanh Kinh, has said he does not want to return to Britain.

In his 1970s heyday, Glitter performed in glittery jumpsuits, silver platform shoes and bouffant wigs. He sold 18 million records and recorded a string of British top-10 hits.

His most successful song, the crowd-pleasing anthem “Rock and Roll (Part 2)” cracked the top 10 in the United States, where it continues to bring sports fans to their feet with its rousing one-word chorus: “Hey!”

Glitter’s fall from grace began in 1997, when he brought his laptop computer to a repair shop and an employee there discovered he had downloaded thousands of hardcore pornographic images of children. Two years later, British authorities convicted him of possession of child pornography, and Glitter served half of his four-month jail term.

He later went to Cambodia but was expelled in 2002, after children’s rights advocates protested his presence in the country. Cambodian officials did not specify a crime or file charges against him.

Glitter subsequently moved to Vietnam, where he took up residence in a seaside villa in the resort town of Vung Tau.