He came from London not Krakozhia and Catherine Zeta-Jones was not waiting for him at customs.

But the strange tale of Robert Wladyslaw Parzelski, a 44-year-old Polish man who got "lost" inside São Paulo's international airport for 18 days, has captivated Brazilian newspaper readers and drawn comparisons with Steven Spielberg's 2004 comedy The Terminal.

In the film Viktor Navorski, a native of the fictitious country Krakozhia, finds himself marooned inside New York's John F Kennedy international airport after US authorities sever diplomatic ties with his war-torn homeland. Navorski, played by Tom Hanks, enjoys a lengthy but action-packed stay at JFK; sculpting a water fountain, dating an air hostess played by Zeta-Jones and eventually making it to a New York jazz club for a Benny Golson show.

The real-life story of Robert Wladyslaw Parzelski, a London-based car electrician, got off to a more mundane start.

Parzelski reportedly arrived in São Paulo on 17 June onboard British Airways flight 247. The tourist slipped easily through customs, but without a return flight, a word of Portuguese or a penny to his name, Parzelski decided not to venture outside.

Instead, he set up camp on a concrete bench inside São Paulo's Guarulhos airport and waited, supposedly for a friend who had agreed to meet him there, but never came.

Alone and unable to communicate with others – "I'm Poland," he reportedly told those who inquired about his wellbeing – Parzelski did his best to make himself comfortable.

Concerned airport cleaners began caring for "the German", bringing him daily servings of water, yoghurt and cigarettes. Two empty bottles of vodka and an improvised toilet were located on airport property. Once clean-shaved, Parzelski's beard began to grow.

Several days into his stay, Parzelski's case was drawn to the attention of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. Their reporters began investigating.

With airport police and officials seemingly uninterested in their Polish guest, the newspaper called on a 70-year-old Polish doctor from São Paulo to get to the bottom of Parzelski's bizarre story.

After a quick chat with the doctor on 30 June – Parzelski's first conversation in more than 10 days – his story began to emerge. Parzelski was a father of five from Krakow who had moved to London with his family seeking work as a builder. When he lost his job during the economic crisis, a Polish friend in London proposed a trip to Brazil. He accepted. Parzelski was handed a one-way ticket to São Paulo and a mission: to return to London with two telephone sets.

Neither the Polish doctor nor the newspaper's reporters were able to establish why somebody in London had commissioned two Brazilian telephones. The mystery thickened and the Polish consulate in São Paulo was called in.

With the case still shrouded in mystery, Parzelski finally left Brazil on Tuesday afternoon, onboard a Swiss Air flight bound for Zurich. From there he would return to London.

"Before embarking … [we] spotted Parzelski enjoying a dark ale at a bar inside the departure lounge," the Folha de São Paulo reported on Wednesday, in presumably its final story about the lost tourist. "Smiling he bade us farewell, with a little wave of the hand."