The father of missing Madeleine McCann said his daughter became a profitable commodity for newspapers as they turned rumours about her disappearance into front-page news.

Gerry McCann told a parliamentary committee investigating privacy and the press that he and his wife Kate found themselves at the centre of an international media storm when Madeleine vanished shortly before her fourth birthday in May 2007. He said an initially helpful relationship with the press turned into the "Gerry and Kate Show".

Journalists on assignment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared from a holiday chalet, were under such pressure that "irrelevances, half truths or suggestions" became page one news, he said.

"Madeline, I believe, was made a commodity, and profits were to be made," he said.

He said newspapers had resorted to fiction to keep the story going.