McCanns Set Up Phone Line to Seek Madeleine

The parents of Madeleine McCann have hired a Spanish detective agency to run a 24-hour confidential telephone line in the hope that information may yet be forthcoming about their missing daughter.

It will be targeted at Spain, Portugal and Morocco, the countries which the family believe may still hold the most promising leads about Madeleine.

A spokesman for the Find Madeleine campaign said that the detective agency had been contracted by Kate and Gerry McCann some time ago.

The couple last night gave an interview to a Spanish broadcaster to publicize the initiative, during which Mrs McCann was reported to have broken down in tears.

"I feel sad and I feel lonely, and our life is not as happy without Madeleine," she told Roberto Arce, a reporter for Antena 3. "I feel anxious that she is not with us."

The interview had to be stopped and restarted after Mrs McCann became too distressed to continue. Mr Arce described her as "prostrate with pain". Asked if they were still confident Madeleine could be alive, Mrs McCann said: "Maybe more so. I think she is possibly being held by someone in their house but I don't know. As Madeleine's mummy I feel in my heart that she is there. I don't know how anyone could harm anyone as beautiful as Madeleine. I don't mean her appearance, I mean as a beautiful person."

November 3 will mark six months since the four-year-old vanished from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz. Although named as formal suspects in the police investigation, the McCanns remain uncharged and vehemently deny any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.