The parents of Madeleine McCann remain convinced their daughter is still alive after she went missing from a sleepy Portuguese holiday resort a year ago, they said yesterday.

Madeleine disappeared from her holiday apartment during a family vacation to this quiet corner of Portugal's Algarve on May 3 last year. Her parents, who were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant when Madeleine disappeared, were named by Portuguese police as suspects in the crime.

"I think there is a very, very good chance that she is still alive," Gerry McCann said in an interview in Portuguese daily Publico yesterday.

"I think she is more likely to be alive than anything else," he said in the comments, which were provided to Reuters in a transcript by Publico.

Madeleine disappeared a few days before her fourth birthday.

Portuguese police have given few clues about their investigation due to strict secrecy laws but appear to have made no major breakthroughs.

The case has attracted huge global media interest since then, with reporters staying on in Praia da Luz for many months after the girl disappeared, reporting on every element of the McCanns lives as they waited for news.

The McCanns returned to Britain in early September after they were named as suspects, in a move the head of Portuguese police has said was a 'hasty' decision.

The McCanns are convinced the best chance to find their daughter is to appeal to the public for help, to keep the case alive in the media. "Finding her is the difficult bit, but I think we can do it, with the help of the public," Gerry McCann said, appealing to people who were in Praia da Luz a year ago to come forward if they saw anything suspicious.

"I want to ask anybody who was in or around Praia da Luz to wrack their brains, did they see something or someone who they didn't recognise, who was maybe suspicious, who was hanging around, to come forward," he said.