Madeleine: Plea over mystery man

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, said dozens of calls had been received since the picture of the man, based on the testimony of tourist Gail Cooper, was issued on Sunday.

The olive-skinned man was seen acting suspiciously near the apartment complex in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished on May 3 last year.

One of the new images bears a striking resemblance to an earlier drawing of a man seen carrying a child through the complex on the night of Madeleine's disappearance.

Mr Mitchell said: "What is important is that the drawings we have done, based on Gail's testimony, are very, very similar to the drawing of the man that Jane Tanner, one of Gerry and Kate's friends, saw on the night of May 3 with a child in his arms.

"We are not saying it is definitely the same man, but we are saying 'who is this guy?'. We need to know where he is, we need to know what he was doing and he needs to eliminate himself, if he is innocent."

Mrs Cooper described seeing an olive-skinned man with straggly collar-length hair acting suspiciously on a number of occasions in the weeks before Madeleine's disappearance.

She said she saw the man walking by himself in heavy rain on the deserted beach at Praia da Luz on April 20. Later the same afternoon, Mrs Cooper said she received a visit from the same man, whom she described as "disturbing".

The man was nervous and agitated and claimed to be collecting for a local orphanage, she said. The man spoke fairly good English, but with a heavy accent, Mrs Cooper said, and she got rid of him quickly because she was apprehensive about him.

Two days later Mrs Cooper, who was on holiday with her husband John, saw the same man hanging around a children's outing to the beach organised by the Mark Warner resort. Madeleine took part in the same outings in the days leading up to her disappearance.