Context : Radial velocity ( hereafter RV ) measurements are used to search for planets orbiting late-type main-sequence stars and confirm the transiting planets . Aims : The most advanced spectrometers are now approaching a precision of \sim 10 cm/s that implies the need to identify and correct for all possible sources of RV oscillations intrinsic to the star down to this level and possibly beyond . The recent discovery of global-scale equatorial Rossby waves in the Sun , also called r modes , prompted us to investigate their possible signature in stellar RV measurements . R modes are toroidal modes of oscillation whose restoring force is the Coriolis force ; they propagate in the retrograde direction in a frame that corotates with the star . The solar r modes with azimuthal orders 3 \leq m \lesssim 15 were identified unambiguously because of their dispersion relation and their long e-folding lifetimes of hundreds of days . Methods : In this paper , we simulate the RV oscillations produced by sectoral r modes with 2 \leq m \leq 5 , by assuming a stellar rotation period of 25.54 days and a maximum amplitude of the surface velocity of each mode of 2 m/s . This amplitude is representative of the solar measurements , except for the m = 2 mode which has not yet been observed on the Sun . Results : Sectoral r modes with azimuthal orders m = 2 and 3 would produce RV oscillations with amplitudes of 76.4 and 19.6 cm/s and periods of 19.16 and 10.22 days , respectively , for a star with an inclination of the rotation axis to the line of sight i = 60 ^ { \circ } . Therefore , they may produce rather sharp peaks in the Fourier spectrum of the radial velocity time series that could lead to spurious planetary detections . Conclusions : Sectoral r modes may represent a source of confusion in the case of slowly rotating inactive stars that are preferential targets for RV planet search . The main limitation of the present investigation is the lack of observational constraint on the amplitude of the m = 2 mode on the Sun .