Reported sightings of Madeleine McCann

[4] Scotland Yard has since ruled this out, saying in October 2013 that a British holidaymaker who was carrying his child home at that time had been identified, was believed to be the man seen by Tanner, and was not involved in the abduction.

They said the man was in his mid-30s, 1.75–1.80 m in height, with a slim-to-normal build, short brown hair, wearing cream or beige trousers with a black leather jacket.

[5] On the evening of 4 May, Antonio Castela, a taxi driver, took three men, a woman, and a girl resembling Madeleine from Monte Gordo to the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo António, where they drove away in a blue Jeep.

[7] A Portuguese trucker telephoned the Método 3 helpline in November reporting that he had seen a blonde woman pass a child wrapped in a blanket to a man, who then 'bundled' her into a car.

[8] Police in the mountainous town of Nelas, northern central Portugal, received information of a girl matching Madeleine's description who was seen with a man in a supermarket on 8 May.

[15] Further, CCTV video from a petrol station near Lagos showed a child matching Madeleine's description with a woman and two men.

[15] The following day it was reported that the car from the petrol station had British number plates and it was claimed that the person caught taking photographs was one of the men on the CCTV footage.

[13][16] An anonymous witness contacted police claiming to have spotted a Fiat Marea with a forged license plate in Pinhal Novo, Palmela, Setúbal, on May 17, which allegedly transported the missing child.

[19] Marie Olli, a Norwegian woman living in the Spanish town of Fuengirola, contacted the police on 10 May 2007, claiming she had seen a girl matching Madeleine's description in a petrol station in Marrakech, Morocco.

[23] Attention switched back to Morocco on 4 June, after GCHQ in Cheltenham picked up phone intercept messages in Arabic referring to "the little blonde girl", a German man, and a ferry from Tarifa in Spain.

[24] Another Spanish tourist, Isabel Gonzalez, has said that she saw a girl fitting Madeleine's description being dragged across a street, also in Zaio, by a North African woman on 15 June.

[23][26] A school inspector claimed to have seen the child in Karia Ba Mohamed around the start of October, but after enquiries, the local police were adamant that she was not there.

[33][34] Dutch student Melissa Fiering claimed that she saw Madeleine with a 'tall, swarthy man', at the L'Arche motorway service station restaurant in the south of France, on 15 February 2008.

Anna Stam reported to Dutch police that a girl of three or four years of age, who resembled Madeleine, had come into her shop and had told her that the adult she was with was "a stranger" who "took me from my mummy" while she was on holiday.