A Portuguese fisherman and three other crew went missing on Wednesday in the English Channel off Dover with no sign of their trawler, the Z85 Morgenster.
Satellite communications were lost and the trawler on which the men worked is thought to have sunk.
The family of the Portuguese man from Póvoa de Varzim has been told to "prepare for the worst" after the RNLI said that two bodies recovered from the sea off Boulogne, had been taken to the French port for identification.
The trawler, registered in Belgium, is 40 metres long and was operating with a crew of four; the Portuguese man, two Dutchmen and a Belgian.
The British and French Navy and Air Force, two Kent lifeboats and a coastguard helicopter searched the area, along with Belgian and Dutch fishing boats, but their efforts were hampered by poor weather conditions.
A life jacket and some wreckage was spotted in the sea off the French coast by a French fixed wing aircraft and two bodies later were recovered.
The Portuguese national is married and has two children, 19 and 13-years-old.
