Kate and Gerry McCann tell today how they prayed through the dark, cold night that Madeleine went missing before going out on a desperate dawn search through the deserted streets of Praia da Luz.

In a documentary to be screened tonight on ITV1, Mrs McCann describes the moment of sheer panic when she first realised that their elder daughter was not in her bed at their rented holiday apartment in the Portuguese seaside resort.

“I rushed round the apartment, really quickly, just opened up cupboards and things and then just went flying out down to the tapas restaurant, shouting someone’s taken Madeleine," remembers Mrs McCann.

“And that’s when the nightmare started.

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“I just remember saying: ’Not Madeleine, not Madeleine, not Madeleine’ and I can just remember saying that over and over and over again.

“Gerry was the same... I’m not used to seeing Gerry obviously that upset.”

Mr McCann interjects: “I think fear is probably the right word, fear for your daughter, fear for yourself, fear for your family, fear for everything and that horrible kind of adrenalin - fight, flight.”

On the reaction of their doctor friends, he says: “Some things kicked in and there was a lot of activity within the group quickly ... I don’t know if it’s (being) used to dealing with very stressful situations at work or otherwise.”

The prospect of Madeleine being spirited away to North Africa - a recurring theme in the year-long search - was raised almost immediately that night, they say.

Mrs McCann explains: “I can remember our friends shouting ’We need to close the borders’ and they were shouting ’Morocco, Algiers’.

“I can remember all this going on - and roadblocks, ’we need roadblocks’."

Mr McCann says he insisted his wife stay at the apartment in hope that Madeleine would be found.

“I was mainly in the bedroom and I was just praying actually,” she recalls. “I was just ringing people and getting everyone to pray, and just felt so helpless.”

But as the night wore on there was a dawning realisation that their daughter was gone.

“It was absolute devastation and total, just total emotion really,” Mr McCann says.

One of Mrs McCann's most vivid memories is her concern that Madeleine would be cold.

“I knew what pyjamas she had on and I just thought she’s going to be freezing,” she says.

“And it was just dark ... every minute seemed like an hour and obviously we were up all night and just waited for that first bit of light about six o’clock.”

Then they went out searching together at dawn. “It was just deserted and we were just searching, through the undergrowth, through bushes,” his wife recounts.

All the while they muttered prayers in their heads. “We were saying over and over again ’just let her be found, let her be found’,” Mr McCann recalls.

They spent much of that day with police giving statements.

Mrs McCann recounts: “Every minute, every hour is time without Madeleine and that Friday I was watching the clock in the police station so ’that’s so many hours’, ’that’s so many hours’ and then it’s 24 hours and you’re back to another dark cold night.”

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