Many sightings of Madeleine McCann have been reported in Morocco by holidaymakers after an appeal by private investigators searching for the missing girl and the release of a description of her alleged abductor.

The investigators are reported to be particularly interested in three calls that gave details of a girl matching Madeleine’s description with a middle-class Moroccan woman aged about 60.

Gerry McCann has said for the first time that he is convinced that a friend saw the abductor taking his daughter from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3. A sketch of a man allegedly seen walking away from the Ocean Club resort was released by the private investigators last week. Mr McCann wrote on his internet blog at the weekend: “We believe this child was Madeleine . . . Someone else may be aware of a man matching this description who has behaved suspiciously at any time since the beginning of May.”

The friend who claims to have seen the abductor has said that she is still haunted by the image of him striding away from the ground-floor apartment where the McCanns were staying, carrying a girl. Jane Tanner, 36, from Exeter, has insisted that she told Portuguese police immediately of the sighting. Carlos Anjos, president of the Judicial Police Inspector’s Union, dismissed the picture as a “cartoon”.

Mr McCann said the family had hired Metoda 3, an agency in Barcelona, to help in the search for his daughter. A source close to the investigators said they had received 275 calls with information on the anonymous help-line - 0034-902 300213 - in the first three days after it was set up. Many of the calls related to Morocco.

Senior police sources in Morocco have said that many young girls in the north of the country, closest to Europe, have blonde hair and features similar to those of Madeleine. They have insisted that it would be unlikely that a strange girl speaking a foreign language would be seen in public without the police being tipped off.

Meanwhile, Mr McCann and his wife Kate, both 39, have been told that they will have to wait nearly a year to discover why they had been made official suspects in the case. The couple, from Rothley, Leicestershire, had hoped to be given the details of the police case against them on November 14, when new Portuguese laws mean that Robert Murat, who had also been a suspect in the case, can ask for the evidence against him.

But it was reported yesterday that police have applied to the investigating judge to have the deadline extended because they are waiting for evidence, including test results by the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham. Judge Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias has been asked to give the case “special complexity” status, which means that the suspects will not learn what they are accused of until May.

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