Detectives wanted to bug McCanns

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Portuguese police wanted to bug Kate and Gerry McCanns' holiday apartment before making them formal suspects in their daughter's disappearance.

The plan was the latest revelation that has come to light since the inquiry was shelved in July after 14 months.

In August last year detectives requested permission to place two bugs in the apartment in Praia da Luz, and one in their car.

But the judge did not grant the order as he thought it unnecessary.

The couple's status as official suspects, or "arguidos", was dropped at the end of last month.

The 11,000 pages of evidence from the inquiry was released to the McCanns after the case was shelved.

The couple have now hired private detectives to continue the search for their daughter who was three when she disappeared in May 2007.

Police examined more than 100 reports of possible sightings of Madeleine in Holland and Belgium.

Madeleine McCann has been missing for over a year

Earlier in the week police sources played down the significance of a tip-off during the investigation suggesting Madeleine may have been kidnapped by a Belgian paedophile ring.

A fresh examination of the files also brought to light the evidence of a shopkeeper in Amsterdam who saw a man and woman with a girl who identified herself as "Maddie" who claimed she had been snatched from her mother.

Alain Remue, who heads the Belgian police missing persons unit, said "every possible link" between the disappearance and any evidence had been examined.

But despite this and warnings the intelligence may be flawed, the McCann's investigation team are pursuing these leads.

An artist's sketch of the couple seen by the shopkeeper in Amsterdam has been released.

'Own conclusions'

It has also been revealed that four families stayed in the apartment the McCann's were holidaying in between Madeleine's disappearance and further forensic examinations taking place.

According to reports trained sniffer dogs smelled blood or a corpse in the apartment and the McCanns' car, resulting in police declaring the couple formal suspects but tests later proved inconclusive.

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "We are not going to comment in detail on every single aspect of the files.

"Kate and Gerry are as innocent today as they were on 3 May [2007] and if this number of people were in the apartment before the searches then I think people will draw their own conclusions about the strength of any material that was recovered."

He added: "We have always said there were wholly explicable reasons for any material that was found."