Fresh searches for Madeleine McCann are to be ordered by Portuguese police as part of a review of the investigation as they receive the results of new laboratory tests.

Paulo Rebelo, the new head of the investigation, is expected to request that searches are carried out within a nine-mile (15km) radius of the Ocean Club holiday resort in Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished on May 3.

Areas to be examined include the coast between Praia da Luz and the village of Burgau, land between the Ocean Club and the beach, and the forests and isolated villas around the Bravura dam in Odiaxere, the Diario de Noticias newspaper reported. Previous searches of the area were called off three weeks after Madeleine disappeared because police had assumed that she was dead.

Mr Rebelo has appointed six experts to review “loose ends” in the police investigation. One of the experts is believed to be a member of the Serviços de Informação e Segurança (SIS), the Portuguese equivalent of MI5.

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The McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were made official suspects on September 7, but have strenuously denied any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine shortly before her fourth birthday.

Alípio Ribeiro, the national director of the Polícia Judiciária, said last week that all lines of inquiry were open after The Times reported that police had failed to identify DNA samples and fingerprints found at the apartment where Madeleine disappeared and could not trace some mobile phone calls made in the area.

Detectives spent two days last week preparing for a detailed reconstruction of events by studying the ground-floor apartment where Madeleine slept.

They have also analysed a route leading from the Ocean Club to the beach at Praia da Luz and they want the seven British friends who were on holiday with the McCanns to be re-interviewed to clear up inconsistencies in their previous statements.

The Times reported last week that British police have been asked to take DNA samples and fingerprints from holidaymakers who were at the Ocean Club on May 3. German and Dutch police have received similar requests.

The Portuguese detectives will today consider the latest results of tests carried out by the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham on samples found in the McCanns’ apartment and a car hired 25 days after Madeleine vanished.

The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that the service had found evidence of a bloody footprint in the McCanns’ apartment with an inconclusive match to Madeleine’s blood.

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