A convicted double killer who has a Maltese name, is facing fresh questioning by the Australian police on suspicion of involvement in a third killing.

Leslie Camilleri is being linked to the murder of 13-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl Prue Bird, who disappeared 22 years ago in Glenroy.

Camilleri is serving two life sentences for the 1997 abduction and murders of New South Wales teenagers Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins. He was questioned about Bird three years ago but the Melbourne police say they do not believe his version of events, particularly in view of new evidence.

Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins were abducted by Leslie Camilleri and Lindsay Beckett and suffered repeated rape and assault. They were driven several hundred kilometres from Bega, New South Wales, to Fiddler's Green Creek in Victoria, where they were stabbed to death by Beckett under the order of Camilleri.

Leslie Alfred Camilleri was born in New South Wales and, accrding to a psychiatric report prepared in 1993, had a deprived childhood and "a pattern of theft and vandalism which have been his reaction to social ostracism, leading to frustration, which because of poor impulse control has ended in explosive outbursts of destructive behaviour."

He had 146 prior convictions for various offences, mostly theft and violence, prior to the murder trials.