The influence of the content and nature of impurities on the rotational temperature of three probe molecules ( OH, NH and N-2(+)) in a helium plasma created in a microwave resonant cavity is investigated by the synthetic spectra method and by mass spectrometry. OH is found to be the only reliable probe to obtain a satisfactory estimation of the gas temperature. In our experimental conditions, depending on the impurity, the gas temperature varies strongly and at 500 ppm, for instance, a difference of 700K is possible (similar to 30% of the mean temperature).