The husband of kidnapped former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, distributed thousands of pictures of his wife's children from an airplane.

The plane flew over a mountainous region in the south of the country on Friday.

During the flight Juan Carlos Lecompte threw handfuls of flyers out of the window of the plane.

The photos show Ingrid's children, Melanie and Lorenzo, aged 20 and 17.

"This is a proof of her children's life that I am sending her. I hope this will cheer her up and raise her morale. She must be very depressed, as I have been sometimes," said Lecompte.

Lecompte hired a small plane to fly over the central mountain range, some 270 kilometres southwest of Bogota.

"I've been told that she could be there," said Lecompte, who has not received a message from Betancourt since August 2003.

Lecompte complained of the lack will of both the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to reach a deal to free Betancourt and around 60 other prominent Colombians held by the guerrillas. (AP)