Police in Portugal are poring over messages from self-professed psychics and clairvoyants in an attempt to track down Madeleine McCann, who went missing exactly four weeks ago. Two 8cm-thick files of emails and other communications are being examined in case one of them contains a message from the four-year-old's kidnapper, the detective leading the hunt, Olegario Sousa, said today. Each clairvoyant's claim was being taken seriously in case they were from the person or people who snatched Madeleine from her parent's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, Chief Inspector Sousa said.
"That is one of the reasons that we cannot discard anything," he said. "We must check them all in case it might be from the kidnapper. But the problem is the same: if there are indications which are enough to follow, then we will go. If there isn't, we cannot do anything."
Some of the descriptions of Madeleine's supposed location were as vague as descriptions of dreams about a man in a house near trees and a road, he said, adding that as yet police did not believe they had heard from the kidnapper.
"Some of the information is about precise location or coordinates and that allows us to go to the place and we will check it. Just a few days ago, we got one address near Lagos [in the Algarve], but it didn't amount to anything."
The visions - coming in from both Portugal and the UK - were only one line of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, Mr Sousa added. "In this case, the amount of information we have received is huge," he said. "Any information that comes to us, if there is enough to follow, we will check."
He said the visions had come from both Portuguese and British sources.
In the absence of any police breakthrough, Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have led a prominent publicity campaign seeking information about their daughter. After meeting the Pope at the Vatican yesterday, the couple were flying to Madrid today to meet political and child welfare figures.
They want to further raise international awareness about Madeleine and plan to visit Berlin, Amsterdam and even Morocco over the next 10 days.
