MADELEINE McCann's parents issued a heartfelt thank-you to people for "not giving up" on their daughter - ahead of today's fourth anniversary of her disappearance.

Anguished Kate McCann insisted in an internet message: "She is still findable."

Kate added on the FindMadeleine website: "We would like to reiterate our gratitude to all of our supporters for not forgetting

"Four years may have passed but our little girl is still missing." Kate, 43, also told how she still has "flashbacks to May 2007" - when three-year-old Madeleine vanished on holiday.

She said: "Everything is so new and fresh.

"You just keep thinking that she's going to be found tomorrow - and here we are four years later."

Kate and husband Gerry, a fellow doctor also aged 43, will mark today's anniversary quietly as family and friends console them.

The mum will attend a prayer vigil at the Catholic church near their home in Rothley, Leics. Similar vigils will be held in Liverpool, where Kate's parents live, and at Our Lady Of Light church in Praia da Luz, Portugal - where Maddie was abducted from the family's holiday apartment.

The couple's spokesman confirmed: "It will be a private day marked with family and friends."

Kate hopes a book she has written - entitled simply Madeleine - will lead to people coming up with new information.

She said: "It will be launched on May 12, which poignantly and coincidentally happens to be Madeleine's eighth birthday.

"We pray that it will bring us the result we long for and that not only the book but this whole ordeal and heartache will be behind us before too much longer."

The '20 cover price will boost the dwindling fund set up to find her little girl.

The McCanns' spokesman said as he revealed their "very low key" anniversary plans that the couple were not intending to return to the Algarve resort.

Kate's book had been due out last week - but the release date was delayed to avoid clashing with the Royal Wedding.