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The appeals court in California rejected the film director's attempt to have his case from three decades ago dismissed outright, foreign media say.

But it outlined a way in which the matter could be settled without Polanski having to return to America or be put behind bars if he did.

The director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and having sex with her during a modeling shoot in 1977.

He originally faced charges including rape and sodomy but they were dismissed following plea bargaining and he admitted unlawful sexual intercourse.

Polanski then fled the US before being sentenced and was arrested three months ago in Switzerland, from where prosecutors in California are seeking his extradition.

While the three judges at California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the director's application to have the case thrown out they said they were "deeply concerned" about alleged misconduct by the now-deceased judge in the original trial.

In a 70-page opinion the judges said they had watched a television documentary which, if true, showed the judge had been "ushered along a path of iniquity by an officer of the court with a personal axe to grind." Polanski claims he only fled because the judge was going to renege on an agreement not to sentence him harshly.

The appeal judges suggested that Polanski could now be found to have served his entire sentence already by virtue of having spent 42 days under psychiatric evaluation before he fled.

If the evidence of judicial misconduct was persuasive in court they were "confident that the trial court could fashion a legal sentence that results in no further incarceration for Polanski."

They also criticised prosecutors pursuing Polanski for not addressing the issue of judicial misconduct.

The judges said: "Fundamental fairness and justice in our criminal justice system are far more important than the conviction and sentence of any one individual."