A detective who spent three years working on the case of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann says he is convinced she may still be alive and hidden in plain sight in the country where she disappeared.

Detective inspector Dave Edgar, who was hired by Kate and Gerry McCann to look into the disappearance of their daughter early on in the investigation, believes Madeleine, who would turn 14 in May, could be living in a secluded part of the Algarve. Edgar told the Sunday Express: "There is every possibility that Madeleine is still alive and could be being hidden somewhere. "When you get up beyond the main strip of the Algarve there's countless isolated properties where Madeleine could be being held." “Obviously we had a number of lines of inquiry and some of those lines did lead us to properties which we followed up and handed over to the authorities.” Edgar previously claimed child sex traffickers are most likely behind the abduction, which occurred while Kate and Gerry McCann dined with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant, and said that it was carefully planned. The detective, who handed his files over to the Metropolitan Police in 2011 but has stayed abreast of developments in the case, says research shows kidnappers often confide in someone close to them and urged anyone with information to speak to the police. “I would suggest that 10 years, while it seems a long time, would not feel like that to that person with information. What happened on that night would still be fresh in their mind." he told the newspaper. “It is not too late to come forward and tell the truth. We have seen in a number of cases recently where people have come forward and given evidence of events which took place many years ago.”