The police received eight reports of sightings of the missing British girl Madeleine McCann in about 24 hours between Sunday and yesterday, but none have proved positive.

Maltese police have been receiving an average of three reported sightings every day but yesterday they received eight, of which only two were from people who believed they saw her yesterday.

In one report, a woman said she believed she saw a child resembling Madeleine on a bus on its way from Valletta to Bugibba. She was in the company of a foreigner. The police are still investigating this lead.

In another report, a person reported he saw the girl in a hotel in Qawra, but when the police went on site, it resulted the girl was not Madeleine.

Other reports received by the police today related reported sightings three weeks ago at Vittoriosa. The girl was noted in the company of two women.

A woman reported she had seen Madeleine alone in a Sliema supermarket on June 15. It was claimed she was wearing a black wig.

Several reports received yesterday dealt with alleged sightings on June 20. One woman said she saw her on the Gozo Channel ferry. Another said they saw a similar looking girl entering an apartment at Mellieha. A Briton said she saw Madeleine accompanied by a woman at Qawra while a man said he saw her in a pushchair at the Birkirkara open-air market. The man said two women with veiled heads, probably Muslims, were pushing the child's pushchair.

The young girl disappeared from her bed 54 days ago while her parents dined at a nearby restaurant in the Praia da Luz Algarve tourist resort in Portugal. She was probably abducted and Portuguese police have since received countless reports about possible sightings of Madeleine, but none proved positive.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry, have launched a campaign to draw attention to her disappearance and a handsome reward of £1.5 million has been offered.

Locally, police from the Criminal Investigations Department and the Vice Squad are leaving no stone unturned and trying to follow up each report.

"Reports of sightings are like bomb hoaxes. You can't tell if they are true or not unless you investigate them. In most cases, the information is unfortunately too scant, but we will continue to investigate the case with the seriousness it deserves," a police spokesman said. The cases dealing with reports of sightings that took place a few days ago are more difficult to investigate, the police said.

"We urge anyone who believes he is seeing the girl to call as soon as possible and note important details about who is accompanying her and where they were heading to," the police said.

Anyone with information should call 2122 1111 or 2122 4001.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.