Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian hostage who was freed in the Colombian jungle in July after over six years, today broke with Vatican protocol to physically embrace Pope Benedict XVI.

The normal practice for Catholics when meeting the Pontilff is to kneel or curtsy and kiss the papal ring, however, Ms Betancourt went one step further in private because she was so overcome with emotion.

Ms Betancourt, 46, a former Colombian presidential candidate, was held captive by rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). She said "The audience with the Pope was a dream for me, to meet a being of light, of humanity or a very high level of human understanding."

She told Benedict how she was overcome when she heard the pontiff appeal for her freedom on a radio broadcast while she was in captivity.

She later told reporters: "As soon as I switched the radio on, I heard the voice of the Pope who was saying my name. You cannot imagine what this can mean to a person in my situation, a prisoner, to understand you have not been forgotten."

Ms Betancourt added: "I didn't follow protocol because as soon as I walked in I embraced the Pope, and maybe you are not supposed to embrace the Pope." The 20-minute encounter took place at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence in the Alban Hills, south of Rome.

She told the Pope that she had prayed for a miracle, asking God to send her a sign of when she would be freed.

Soon after one of her captors told her some hostages might be released to a visiting group from an "international commission". She was then freed in an operation conducted by the Colombian military.

She said "When I told the Pope this, he replied: 'He heard you because you knew how to ask. You didn't ask for a miracle to be freed yourself, instead you asked to understand what was His will'.'"

Ms Betancourt said she was a Roman Catholic but had never read the Bible before her capture, thinking it to be "a dusty old book". In captivity she had read it "20,000 times" and now held it to be "an instruction manual for happiness". She said she had recited the rosary each day while in rebel hands.

Dressed in a black lace veil, she was accompanied by her mother, Yolanda Polecio — whom Pope Benedict met in February — and other family members.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that the aim of Ms Betancourt's trip was "to thank the Pope for his prayer, his commitment, his remarks in favour of all the hostages and her personally". She had also "wanted to talk about the experience of her faith supporting her during her captivity".

Asked about her future, Ms Betancourt did not rule out a return to politics but said that her priority was to work for the liberation of other hostages in Colombia and around the world.

Media reports claimed today that the Italian Refounded Communist Party (Rifondazione Comunista) had aided Farc by raising funds for it even while Ms Betancourt was being held. The revelation allegedly emerged from e-mails on a captured rebel laptop belonging to the Farc commander Raul Reyes, who was killed in March in a Colombian military raid.

The support is reported to have included payment of medical bills for a Farc representative in a Swiss clinic. A spokesman for Rifondazione Comunista, Ramon Mantovani, admitted the contacts with Farc but said that its objective was to "rebuild a peace process in Colombia", adding that the party had always demanded the liberation of Ms Betancourt.