A holidaymaker has revealed how she saw a blonde girl who looked identical to Madeleine at a campsite there three days after the three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz, a few hours' drive away in Portugal, in 2007.
Karen Sisson, 49, told The Sun that the girl was wearing a pink T-shirt, shorts and a beige hat and seemed "out of it" and out of place with the German couple she was staying with and their two curly-haired toddlers.
She said: "She seemed alienated and completely different to her family. It really was most peculiar."
The mother-of-two said her suspicions grew the next day when she saw the girl wearing the same clothes as the day before.
Ms Sisson, from Gibraltar, who saw the child at the Cabopino campsite, near Fuengirola, said she received no response from police when she raised the alarm at the time.
She left the next day but the couple stayed for another two weeks. Police have now been told that the family paid extra for bringing one more child than expected when they arrived at the site on May 6, it was reported.
Their car had a "BE" German number plate, which went out of official use 38 years ago, but Ms Sisson believes the vehicle was a blue Mercedes Vito people carrier, a model first produced in 1996.
A source close to Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine's parents, told The Sun that the sighting had been passed on to Operation Grange, set up by the Metropolitan Police to review the case.
The couple's spokesman said: "This lady has done exactly the right thing in reporting what she saw to the police."
The McCanns have spoken recently of their renewed hope that their daughter will be found, five years after her disappearance.
Mrs McCann said the Scotland Yard review and the release of a new picture showing how Madeleine might look now had left them feeling "probably as positive" as they had been for a long time.
