Have you installed the package "mdbtools"?

From the openoffice.org-base blurb in Synaptic:

You can extend the functionality of OpenOffice.org Base by installing these
packages:

* unixodbc: ODBC database support
* libmyodbc | odbc-postgresql | libsqliteodbc | tdsodbc | mdbtools: ODBC
drivers for:
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- SQLite
- MS SQL / Sybase SQL
- *.mdb (JET / MS Access)
* libmysql-java | libpg-java: JDBC Drivers
for:
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL