Headlineripper problem with special characters

I have this headlineripping script up and running but special characters causes major problems. Is there any way to html encode, change character encoding or replace scandic letters ö ä and å with html code. And I think it must be done before parsing.

//start

Set xml = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP")
theurl = "here is the url"
xml.Open "GET", theurl, False
xml.Send

//parsing

MyString = xml.responseText
strtolookfor = "<startlookingtext>"
endtolookfor = "<stoplookingtext>"
startleft = 1

//pasting
Response.Write("<someextrahtmlhere>" & theheadline & "<someextrahtmlhere>")

For example: If I use Server.HTMLEncode([theheadline]) to replace theheadline in pasting, it only encodes the mess what is already done. If the headline has ä ö or å for its last letter, string stops right there and causes <stoplookingtext> (some html tag) to crash.

Have you tried using regular expressions?

I'm not quite familiar with reg exp. Anyone? There must be some solution.