Private detectives are investigating claims that Madeleine McCann may have been snatched to order for a Belgian paedophile ring.
Scotland Yard passed on a report from an informant who said a photograph of the child on holiday in Portugal was taken and passed to a "purchaser" in Belgium days before she vanished.
The Metropolitan Police email read: "Intelligence suggests that a paedophile ring in Belgium made an order for a young girl three days before Madeleine McCann was taken.