The parents of vanished British girl Madeleine McCann have ordered an investigation into a possible sighting of their daughter in Amsterdam in June 2007. A private detective is checking a statement made to Portuguese police by a shop assistant in the Dutch capital. The declaration only became public earlier this week when the Portuguese authorities released police documents related to the case.

The 41-year old witness is quoted as saying that an English-speaking woman came into the shop, accompanied by a man who possibly spoke Portuguese, and three children. One of them, a girl fitting the description of Maddie, asked the Dutch shop assistant if she knew where her mother was. The girl also said the woman she was with was not her mother, and claimed that she had been taken away from her mother while on holiday.

Tragic
Mr and Mrs McCann had not heard about this possible sighting until the Portuguese police documents were published. A spokesperson for the family says it is 'tragic' that the possible trace in Amsterdam could not have been followed up much earlier.

The Portuguese police files pertaining to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann include 30,000 documents on 17 DVDs. Dozens of media have submitted requests to view the material. The lawyers acting for the parents of the then three-year-old girl want to study the files in an attempt to find new clues.

Algarve sightings
In addition to the reported sighting in the Netherlands, the police files also include closed-circuit TV images from two filling stations in the Algarve taken the day after Maddie disappeared, showing a girl that looks like her. Also in the Portuguese police files are composite pictures of suspected abductors.

Madeleine McCann disappeared without trace from her parents' holiday home in the Algarve, a region of southern Portugal that is extremely popular with tourists, on 3 May 2007. Her parents, who for a brief period were suspected of being involved in their daughter's disappearance, sought international media attention to discover what had happened to their child.