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“Gerry will often refuse to talk on a mobile phone. He prefers to use land-lines as he considers them safer. That is based on information that they have received during the investigation. It makes them feel really awkward in their own home. They feel they are being watched at all times.”

The source added that this did not suggest that their conversations were in any way furtive as a result. “They are entirely innocent and have nothing whatsoever to hide.”

The couple have, however, decided to avoid talking over the phone about how they would clear their names if charged by the police, fearing that it would give the Portuguese an unfair advantage.

Some of the McCanns’ friends who were with them on holiday in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance in May have also been told that they may be being bugged.

Portuguese detectives would have to file a mutual legal assistance request with the Home Office if they wanted phone calls to be bugged in Britain. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, would have to sanction an application, which would be carried out by British authorities.

Neither the Home Office nor Leicestershire Constabulary would comment yesterday on whether any request had been received or put in place. A spokesman for the McCanns also refused to comment.

Under Portuguese law bugging telephones and computers is admissible evidence in court. The police are, however, required to get a judge’s approval. If they were unable to get permission before fitting the devices, they can apply to the courts retrospectively.

It is understood that one of the first applications made by the PolÍcia Judiciária to the judge was a retrospective application to continue bugging the McCanns and to use information already gleaned from the surveillance operation in court.

One option open to the police would have been to fit the McCanns’ car, hired 25 days after the child’s disappearance, with a satellite tracking device. Detectives believe that the vehicle was used to dump the child’s body after it had been concealed. The tracker would have pinpointed where the car was driven.

The bugging claim is the latest salvo in the increasingly acrimonious battle being played out in the media as the McCanns, who under Portuguese law cannot comment on the case, and the police, who are bound by the same restrictions, try to win over the public.

The couple’s fears about their every move being monitored emerged as the Portuguese police were granted permission by the investigating judge to apply to Britain to search the McCanns’ family home. Detectives believe that the couple flew back with vital evidence that could help the police to establish whether they had some involvement in the child’s death.

Last night the McCanns insisted that there was an innocent explanation for sniffer dogs having detected the presence of human bodies in their Portuguese hire car. A source said that the Renault Mégane Scenic was used to ferry bags containing rotting meat and other rubbish to a nearby tip.

“There were not proper dustbins at the villa and as a result the family had to regularly transport their household waste including rotting food, rotting meat and soiled nappies to a communal disposal area,” the source said.

“The vehicle was used as a rubbish lorry for the family, so there would potentially have been the scent of rotting flesh, excrement and urine. Who’s to say that the nappy bag didn’t leak?”

Madeleine’s sandals are also believed to have been transported in the car, potentially allowing DNA from sweat to be transferred.

The source said that Kate and Gerry McCann’s legal team were working in a vacuum trying to prepare any defence for the couple, because of a lack of information from the Portuguese authorities.

“There is a lack of communication right down the line to them. The defence team is having to draw up a case without knowing what the allegations are. Gerry asks, ‘What have we been accused of?’ He doesn’t know and nor does anyone else.”

The McCanns’ efforts to fight police leaks about scientific evidence said to prove that they had some hand in their daughter’s death saw the couple criticised yesterday by the English organisation analysing samples seized from the scene of Madeleine’s disappearance and the family hire car. The Forensic Science Service is frustrated that DNA examinations they have carried out for the Portuguese police were being rubbished by the publicity campaign launched by the McCanns.

The Birmingham company is due to hand over a new batch of DNA test results carried out on samples taken from Praia da Luz. They are due to arrive in Portugal in the next few days.

The tests are looking for traces of her DNA from material gathered around Praia da Luz, including alleged blood samples found in an apartment close to the one from where Madeleine disappeared on May 3.

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