Within hours of Madeleine McCann going missing, her grinning face was peering out from television broadcasts across the country.

Her family and friends quickly knocked down suggestions by resort staff that the little girl could have wandered off, saying from the outset that she was snatched from her bed during an idyllic holiday in the Algarve village of Praia Da Luz.

Everton football club have added their voices to the appeal for Madeleine's safe return as the search for her hits its seventh day

Madeleine's parents make their desperate televised appeal for her return, Kate McCann clutching Madeleine's toy 'Cuddle Cat', which has appeared with her in almost every picture

They were checking on Madeleine and their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie, every half hour.

At around 10pm, Kate McCann emerged screaming from the room having found the shutters pulled up and the window and door open, beginning what would be every parent's nightmare.

Staff and guests joined in the search, and the local police - the National Republican Guard - arrived within 10 minutes, launching a sniffer dog search and notifying border police, Spanish police and airports.

The Judicial Police - the Portuguese CID equivalent - arrived in force the next morning, sparking criticism from British talking heads in interviews that the "golden hour" opportunity to find Madeleine had been missed.

As the media descended on the seaside resort, questions about their handling of the case grew as it became apparent that they would not divulge any details about possible suspects or lines of inquiry.

In the UK, police would use the child rescue alert, established after the murder of Sarah Payne, asking television and radio to broadcast a description of the child, what they were last wearing and any details of a suspect or their vehicle.

In Portugal, the integrity of the investigation is tantamount and public appeals are considered to give criminals clues as to the direction police are taking.

As a result, it was Madeleine's parents who issued the first photographs and footage of their daughter, and they who made the first public appeal for information.

Later, they would be the ones to detail the clothes their daughter was wearing when she vanished: white pyjama bottoms with a small floral design and a short-sleeved pink top with a picture of Eeyore on it.

In one photograph released, taken while on holiday, Madeline wears a pink hat and grins up at the camera, clutching tennis balls to her chest. In another, she is cradled by her mother as she blows out birthday candles on a homemade cake. In another black and white shot, she sits surrounded by her mother, father, brother and sister: the picture of a perfect happy family.

Facing the cameras on Friday night, Madeleine's father and consultant cardiologist Gerry McCann, his voice cracking with emotion, issued a personal appeal to anyone holding his daughter captive to release her.

He said: "We can't describe the anguish and despair we are feeling as parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine.

"Please, if you have Madeleine, let her come home to her mummy, daddy, brother and sister."

By this time police had begun dusting window shutters for finger prints and had sealed off the apartment, but again their methods drew criticism from British experts.

Sniffer dogs are thought to have followed Madeleine's scent to a supermarket 50 yards away but the trail went cold and the store's CCTV cameras showed no sign of the girl.

Using a map provided by the local mayor and aided by extra maps downloaded from the internet, around 800 people took part searching an area from the resort to the next village of Quatro Estradas around three miles away.

The search was extended to six miles, and television footage showed groups scouring the beach and the hillsides and derelict buildings around the village.

One of the search coordinators, local resident Dave Shelton, defended the police, saying: "The police were great. You have to remember that the population of Portugal is about the same as London. They have shipped them down from Lisbon, from everywhere."

The next morning, detectives broke their silence to confirm what everyone had dreaded but come to expect: that Madeleine had been abducted.

They also brought some hope however, saying they believed she was still alive and not far from Praia Da Luz.

Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the Judicial Police in the Faro region, said calls had flooded in from all over Portugal with possible sightings, and made clear police were considering the possibility that she was abducted for sexual abuse.

The e-fit of a suspect in the abduction - as drawn from memory by a British witness who had been shown the original

Again, there was frustration that no details of a rumoured suspect were released, nor was a sketch of a suspect put together by experts - later said by people shown it to be featureless and look "like an egg with hair".

Speaking this morning on BBC Breakfast, Portuguese Ambassador to Britain Anton Santana Carlos acknowledged the release of e-fits could help trap a suspect, but added of the Portuguese police laws: "It's not a mirror wall that can be changed from one day to the other, this principle is enshrined in our constitution so we cannot change it easily."

As the search continued, tormenting reports of sightings filtered out.

Local expatriates spotted a young girl was spotted walking along a road in the nearby town with two people; a balding man was seen dragging a girl towards a marina in the nearby town of Lagos; another man was seen driving away from a central Portuguese village at speed; a tourist reported how, two weeks earlier, she saw a man trying to steal a pushchair at the resort itself.

With each, the watching world held its breath, only for another red herring to be confirmed.

Gerry McCann and his wife Kate, clutching Madeleine's pink cuddly toy kitten, emerged to make another statement. While careful to thank police for their efforts, they said they were glad to have Leicester Police family liaison officers helping them find out more, even though there was little more to know.

Mrs McCann made her first direct appeal to her daughter's captor, standing on the steps of a local church where she attended a Portuguese Mother's Day ceremony.

"Please continue to pray for Madeleine," she said, whispering afterwards: "She's lovely."

Later she appealed directly to whoever is holding her daughter. "Please, please, do not hurt her. Please do not scare her, please let us know where to find Madeleine or put her in place of safety and tell somebody where. We beg you to let Madeleine come home."

She added in Portuguese: "Por favor, devolva a nossa menina."

Police sources claimed detectives were now looking for a British, rather than Portuguese abductor, pointing to a working description detectives are using suggested someone of English appearance.

Local media suggested British authorities had provided details of British paedophiles with links to the Algarve.

Meanwhile police showed their frustration with the constant questions in another press conference in which they admitted they no longer knew if the Madeleine was alive or not.

Responding to another question, Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa said: "We are searching for the child until the moment she appears. We can say nothing more because we are not magicians."

By the end of the weekend, Interpol and Europol were involved and British offers of help were accepted. Two Cracker-style British criminal behavioural experts from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) - which tackles international child sex abuse - began work today.

Police, perhaps relenting to intense media interest, revealed they had received hundreds of calls from both Portuguese people and foreigners, interviewed more than 100 people, followed up 350 separate suspicious incidents, inspected 500 apartments in the holiday area and scoured fields across a nine-mile area.

Crimestoppers has set up a special number for information about Madeleine, which will be relayed to the Portuguese police by the Leicestershire force, and Ceop together with the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) launched a web appeal

Football stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and John Terry have appealed for Madeleine's return

Footballers Cristiano Ronaldo, John Terry and Paulo Ferreira added their voices to calls for Madeleine to be freed. Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman confirmed he too was waiting anxiously for news.

An email address set up yesterday afternoon for the family by Ocean Club owners, holiday firm Mark Warner, received 400 messages by mid-morning today from 20 countries, including Zambia, the United States and Bahrain.

And Gerry and Kate McCann wait and pray, maintaining a brave face for their children and hoping their daughter will be found before she turns four on Saturday.

Their ordeal with either end with joy or the unthinkable - and clues as to which it will be prove frustratingly elusive.

• Messages for the McCanns can be sent to mccannfamily@markwarner.co.uk

• The Crimestoppers number for those calling from Portugal is 0044 1883 731 336 or information can be passed direct to the Portuguese police on 00 351 282 405 400.

• The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and Virtual Global Taskforce appeal is at www.ceop.gov.uk and www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com.