A notice to travel agents regarding canceled Concordia voyages may be the source of the contretemps. Passengers booked on Concordia cruises scheduled later in the year are being offered refunds as well as 30 percent discounts on other Costa cruises as an apology for the scratched voyages.

A Costa statement released Monday evening refers to that offer. But it does not address the statement quoted in the Telegraph, or say whether Concordia survivors were offered the same deal. Stewart Chiron, a Miami cruise commentator who runs the booking site cruiseguy.com, said it’s pretty clear the media is getting it wrong.

“This has nothing to do with the survivors,’’ he said.

With divers discovering two more bodies on the 950-foot-long ship Monday and more than a dozen people still missing, Carnival and Costa face a wave of lawsuits, damage to a key European brand and the potential for an oil spill with unknown costs.

On Monday, Moody’s released a study saying lawsuits and clean-up from a potential fuel spill from the Concordia could boost the ultimate cost of the accident to $1 billion. Most of that, Moody’s said, would be paid by insurance providers and not Carnival.

Investors did not appear concerned Monday, with Carnival’s stock inching down a few cents to $31.51, 8 percent below where it was before the Jan. 13 accident. In the wake of the accident, analysts predicted Carnival’s profits would drop 20 percent this year but still end 2012 well above $1 billion. Clean-up crews hope to begin pumping oil from the Concordia by the weekend, an encouraging sign given earlier fears the ship might be too unstable to remove the fuel.

Lawyers hope to sue Carnival in the United States, rather than pursue damages against Costa in Italian courts, where laws aren’t considered as friendly to plaintiff cases. That raises the stakes for any Arison interview, with plaintiff attorneys eager to tie headquarters to any mistakes made with the Concordia.

Mike Eidson, a top personal-injury lawyer, said he has signed up about 200 Concordia passengers from around the world as clients thanks to media reports quoting him as a liability expert in the wake of the accident. He said a CEO’s public statements could be useful in a case, citing his firm’s successful pursuit of Ford in lawsuits involving faulty Firestone tires.

“The CEO of Ford made a whole bunch of incriminating statements in front of Congress,’’ Eidson recalled. “We used all of those statements against him.”