Interesting. It's standard on UK V/XC70's of a similar vintage with 7 seat option so not sure why they'd choose to treat them differently. I think in the US they had to fit handles to saloon cars like S60 even though you would not normally tend to stuff passengers in the boot. I seem to recall hearing it was on the off change you were bundled into the boot by some kidnapper or something equally daft!
EDIT: no, I'm not making it up!
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...your-car-trunk