Belgium sighting is not Madeleine

The father of a young blonde girl captured on CCTV in Brussels on August 4 came forward on Monday night to explain that his daughter was not the missing girl.

Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the Belgian federal prosecutor's office, said: "He saw this picture and obviously for him it was very easy recognising the girl accompanied by a woman in a veil."

She added: "It's her nanny - she is a young Moroccan woman who is qualified to look after children and works in a care centre."

The news will be a blow to Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, who had hoped the Brussels sighting would provide the breakthrough they have been awaiting for more than 15 months.

CCTV images of the potential sighting in the western Molenbeek suburb of Brussels show the woman walking down the street hand-in-hand with the child.

And a security guard at a branch of the KBC Bank reportedly overheard the girl say to the adult in English, "Can we go back now?"

The McCanns were shown the grainy security camera footage but could not rule out the possibility that the child might be their daughter.

Their private detectives followed up the report with the help of investigators in Brussels and video enhancement experts in the US.

Belgian police planned to show the CCTV footage on national television if nobody came forward to explain the sighting. But Ms Pellens said it had turned out that the four-year-old girl was the "ordinary Belgian daughter of an ordinary Belgian citizen".