The discovery of Shannon Matthews three weeks after she disappeared after a school swimming trip in West Yorkshire will offer hope to parents of children who are still missing.

The longer a child is missing the more likely it is that they will not be found alive. However, there have been some remarkable stories of children discovered many years after they disappeared.

Perhaps the most astonishing case is Natascha Kampusch, 18, who survived for eight years in an underground cell after being abducted aged 10. She was seized by Wolfgang Priklopil, a telecoms worker, while walking to school in Vienna, Austria, in 1998. Priklopil killed himself after she escaped.

Shawn Hornbeck was missing for four years after being kidnapped aged 11 in October 2002. He was found in in January last year at an apartment in St Louis, Missouri with Ben Ownby, 13, who had disappeared a few days earlier. Michael Devlin, 41, was jailed for life last October after admitting kidnapping.

In rural Belgium Sabine Dardenne, 12, was abducted by the serial killer Marc Dutroux in 1996. She suffered continual abuse until her rescue 80 days later.and testified at her captor’s trial in 2004.

Natasha Ryan, 14, ran away from home in Rockhampton, Australia, in 1998. After a huge police search Leonard John Fraser was charged with her murder. But during his trial in April 2003 she re-emerged and admitted she had been living with a 26-year-old boyfriend.

Danielle Cramer, 15, disappeared in June 2006, in Bloomfield, Connecticut, was found a year later looked in a room under the staircase of a nearby family’s home. Last August her parents filed a law suit seeking more than $15,000 in damages for her alleged captors.

The charity Missing Persons, formerly National Missing Persons Helpline, highlights the cases of 140,000 missing children in Britain every year.Most are found within a few days but for a handful of parents face a far longer agonising wait.

Paul Tuohy, chief executive of Missing People, said: “This is fantastic news for Shannon’s family, the local community and will also offer hope to other families who await news of a missing loved one.

“At any one time the charity has around 6,000 open missing cases and we hope that each and every one will have the same successful resolution.

“Like Shannon, every missing person matters and we hope that the interest in missing as a social issue will now stay firmly on the agenda of government, policymakers and the media.”

An estimated 210,000 reports of missing people are made to British police forces each year. Around two-thirds of these concern young people under the age of 18. Most missing people return safe and well within 72 hours of going missing.

The parents of Madeleine McCann, who has been missing for 10 months after disappearing from their Algarve holiday apartment, said the discovery of Shannon had given them fresh hope.

Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, had been closely following the hunt for Shannon and said they were “delighted” she has been found alive. They believe their daughter, who disappeared days before her fourth birthday, may have been taken to North Africa.

The couple’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said: “Kate and Gerry are aware that she has been found alive. They feel that is excellent news, they are delighted that she is alive.

“They will not comment more until they know the full circumstances. Suffice to say that they will keep on looking until they have a happy resolution in Madeleine’s case.

“It proves that children can go missing for whatever reason and still be found alive.

“Until Kate and Gerry know what has happened to Madeleine, there will always be hope for them that she too will be found alive. They will keep on looking as long as there is hope.”

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