A detailed reconstruction of the night Madeleine McCann disappeared from an Algarve holiday apartment is tonight being carried out by Portuguese police.

A reconstruction of the night that Madeleine McCann was reported missing from an Algarve holiday apartment was carried out by Portuguese police last night in an attempt to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

Detectives were seen passing objects through the window of the front bedroom where Madeleine had been sleeping in the ground-floor apartment at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz.

Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have claimed that the bedroom’s security shutter had been forced up and the window opened by the abductor almost six months ago.

The reconstruction is part of a major review of the evidence ordered by Paulo Rebelo, one of Portugal’s most senior detectives, after he he was put in charge of the case last month.

He was pictured yesterday walking through the complex and leaning over the balconies of apartments.

His officers attempted to piece together the crucial four hours from the time Madeleine was taken to the apartment until Mrs McCann reported her missing at 10pm on May 3. They are also believed to have reconstructed the movements of the seven friends who were dining with Mrs McCann and her husband, Gerry, at a tapas restaurant on the Ocean Club complex.

Mr Rebelo was inside the Ocean Club apartment for three hours with five other officers yesterday evening. He walked the route to the nearby beach – past the town’s church – which had previously been marked by a British sniffer dog.

The officers were also seen outside the apartment of Sergey Malinka, a 22-year-old Russian computer expert who has been questioned twice about Madeleine’s disappearance. They also examined a road to the south of the Ocean Club and another leading to to main N125 route north of Praia da Luz.

Mr Rebelo is reported to have been concerned that crucial evidence could have been missed during the investigation. He has ordered that all evidence be recorded on computers after finding potentially vital information written on scraps of paper.

Mr and Mrs McCann hope that the reconstruction will prove that they could not have been involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.

The couple were offered fresh hope yesterday when the private detectives hired to find their daughter claimed that they had already tracked down a kidnapped girl, possibly an American, in Morocco.

They believe that Madeleine could also be in the country, kept captive by a middle-class woman in the Rif mountains. About ten people have told the investigators that they have seen a blonde girl fitting Madeleine’s description with a 60-year-old woman.

Francisco Marco, director-general of the Metodo 3 investigations agency, said: “My own feeling is that this woman is some sort of carer who is working on behalf of other people.

“We can’t be certain it’s Madeleine but several unconnected people have told our informers of the same girl with the same woman.

“The only difference is that she has slightly shorter hair than Madeleine had when she disappeared. Everything else matches.”

The investigators have already tipped off Interpol about the existence of a blonde English-speaking girl about Madeleine’s age they discovered living with a Moroccan family.

They are also studying the backgrounds of 15 convicted and nonconvicted Portuguese sex offenders. The men are alleged to be interested in young girls and left Portugal for neighbouring countries shortly after Madeleine disappeared.

However, the idea that Madeleine may have been smuggled to Morocco has been dismissed by senior local police officers who have pointed out that many young girls in the Rif mountains have blonde hair. A previous sighting of a girl looking similar to Madeleine was quickly proved to be the daughter of a local farmer.

The possible breakthrough in the hunt for Madeleine came as the friends who were on holiday with Mr and Mrs McCann when their daughter Madeleine vanished 180 days ago denied allegations they had made a “pact of silence” to protect the couple.

Reports have suggested that Portuguese police believe that the “Tapas Nine” are hiding damaging facts that could implicate the McCanns in the disappearance of their daughter shortly before her fourth birthday.

However, the friends insisted yesterday that they had not spoken publicly about the case until now at the request of Portuguese detectives because of the country’s laws of judicial secrecy. In a statement issued through the couple’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, the friends said: “We wish to state that there is categorically no pact of silence or indeed anything secretive between us - just the desire to assist the search for Madeleine.

“This is reflected in us saying and doing nothing that could in any way hinder the investigations now underway.”

Portuguese police have received permission from a judge to travel to Britain to reinterview at least four of the seven friends about apparent inconsistencies and contradictions in their previous statements.

The key witnesses are Dr Russell O’Brien, 36, and his partner, Jane Tanner, 37, from Exeter, and Dr Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, 37 and 36, from Leicestershire. The other friends are Dr David Payne, 41, a cardiovascular researcher, and his wife Fiona, 34, also from Leicestershire, and Mrs Payne’s mother, Dianne Webster.

Attention has focused on the McCanns’ fellow holidaymakers since Portuguese police formally named the couple as suspects in the case on September 7.

Mr McCann will return to work on Thursday as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.