Maddy: the e-fits kept secret

Not even Kate and Gerry were shown the pictures even though they could have been of the man who took their daughter.

The omission over the e-fits, and the fact the couple were not told about a possible sighting of Madeleine in Amsterdam in which a girl says she was "taken from my mummy on holiday" left the McCanns "flabbergasted", their spokesman said.

The e-fits are in newly-released police files from the Portuguese investigation. Both show a man in his late twenties to early thirties, with medium-length dark hair and 5ft 8ins tall.

Two British holidaymakers, Derek Flack, a 64-year-old freelance design engineer from Ilford, and Lance Purser, gave the strikingly similar descriptions separately to detectives.

They said they had seen a man acting suspiciously in the Ocean Club resort at Praia da Luz. Mr Flack said he saw the man either the day before Madeleine went missing or the same day. He said the man had a white van which was parked at the back of the McCanns' apartment.

Madeleine disappeared on 3 May last year, six days short of her fourth birthday. Her parents, who have always maintained she was abducted, were formally cleared by the Portuguese last month.

The McCanns' official spokesman hit out at Portuguese police for failing to release the potentially crucial information in the hours and days after Madeleine disappeared.

Clarence Mitchell said: "These two efits were never seen by Gerry and Kate or any of the friends who were on holiday with them. They are flabbergasted, it's astounding that this man was spotted acting suspiciously near where Madeleine went missing but the information wasn't made public."

Portuguese detectives only released one e-fit during the course of their 15-month investigation - a widely mocked picture of an "egg-shaped" head containing no facial detail whatsoever.

Another possibly vital sighting, contained in the 30,000-page police dossier released in Portugal, is also revealed for the first time today.

Amsterdam shop worker Ana Stam, 41, said she spoke to a girl aged three or four who said her name was "Maddy" and replied to a question about her mother: "They took me from my holiday." The girl came into her shop in early May last year with a man and a woman and two other children, according to a witness statement to Dutch police. The man - who "did not look like a nice person" - appeared to be speaking Portuguese but the woman spoke in English and told Ms Stam they had a small circus in France.

Ms Stam said the girl approached her and asked in English: "Do you know where my mummy is?" The shop assistant answered that the girl's mother was a little further back in the store but the child replied, "She is not my mummy," and added: "She is a stranger, she took me from my mummy." When Ms Stam asked the girl where she last saw her mother, she said: "They took me from my holiday."

Ms Stam said she thought the child looked "very much like" Madeleine apart from the colour of her hair which was brown. The report was sent to the Portuguese authorities on 18 June last year but it is not clear what action was taken. Mr Mitchell said of the Amsterdam-sighting: "Kate and Gerry were never contacted about that or whether it was followed up properly. This just shows the appalling lack of communication from the Portuguese police."

The police files also contain images never before seen of the boot of the McCanns' hire car which Portuguese police were convinced, wrongly, contained traces of Madeleine's DNA.