Madeleine inquiry report leaked

An official 57-page summary of the massive final dossier assembled by the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) - Portugal's CID - was apparently posted online.

The leak came as Gerry and Kate McCann considered taking legal action against the Portuguese authorities after the couple had their suspect status formally lifted.

The police report, dated June 20 2008 and written by an Algarve-based PJ inspector, was placed on the website of the Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

Detectives named the McCanns as "arguidos", or formal suspects, last September in the light of sniffer dog searches and initial DNA test results, according to the document. This was because inquiries had flagged up the "slightest chance of their involvement with a possible corpse" in their holiday flat and hire car, it said.

The leaked report said a "cadaver dog", trained to sniff out dead bodies, picked up a scent in the McCanns' apartment and on clothes belonging to Mrs McCann and Madeleine. The animal also apparently scented death on the key of the Renault Scenic hire car rented by the McCanns 24 days after the little girl went missing.

Preliminary forensic analysis on samples recovered from the McCanns' hire car raised the possibility of a match with Madeleine's DNA profile, the report said. But final DNA test results could not match the material to any particular person - or even establish whether it was blood or another type of body fluid.

When Mr and Mrs McCann, both 40, were interviewed on September 6 and 7 they denied having anything to do with their daughter's disappearance, the document noted.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby.

The leaked PJ report details the numerous leads Portuguese detectives pursued fruitlessly - including psychic visions and thousands of reported sightings of Madeleine from as far away as Indonesia and Singapore.