Fresh searches for Madeleine McCann are to be ordered by Portuguese police as part of a major review of the investigation as they receive new forensic evidence into her disappearance.

Paulo Rebelo, the new head of the investigation, is expected to request that searches are carried out within a 15km radius of the Ocean Club holiday resort in Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished on May 3.

Areas to be examined include the coast between Praia da Luz and the village of Burgau, land between the Ocean Club and the beach and the forests and isolated villas around the Bravura dam in Odiaxere, the Diario de Noticias newspaper reported. Previous searches of the area were called off three weeks after Madeleine disappeared because police assumed she was dead.

Mr Rebelo, one of Portugual’s most senior detectives, has appointed six experts to review “loose ends” in the police investigation after concern that it has focused too much on Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. One of the experts is believed to be a member of the Serviços de Informaçao e Segurança (SIS), Portugual’s equivalent of MI5.

Portuguese detectives are concerned that the inquiry has failed to rule out the possibility that Madeleine was abducted by a stranger.

The McCanns, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were made official suspects on September 7 but have strenuously denied any involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine shortly before her fourth birthday.

Alípio Ribeiro, the national director of the Poilica Judiciaria, said last week that all lines of inquiry are open after The Times revealed that police have failed to identify DNA samples and fingerprints found at the apartment where Madeleine disappeared and cannot trace some mobile phone calls made in the area.

Detectives spent two days last week studying the ground-floor apartment where Madeleine was sleeping in preparation for a detailed reconstruction of events. They have also analysed a route leading from the Ocean Club to the beach at Praia da Luz.

Mr Rebelo, who took over as the new head of the investigation last Monday, has been joined by two homicide detectives, a specialist in sexual abuse investigations and a robbery detective. He has also recruited two specialists in “analysis techniques”, one of whom is believed to have been seconded from the SIS. Four of the original investigators are also still on the inquiry.

The Times revealed last week that British police have been asked to take DNA samples and fingerprints from holidaymakers who were at the Ocean Club on May 3. German and Dutch police have also received similar requests.

Portuguese detectives will on Monday consider the latest results of tests carried out by the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham on samples found in the McCanns' apartment and a car hired 25 days after Madeleine vanished.

The Mail on Sunday reported today that the FSS had found evidence of a bloody footprint in the McCanns' apartment with an inconclusive match to Madeleine’s blood. The footprint from a size five or six shoe was reported to match one found on the rear bumper of a hire car which was consistent with lifting a heavy object, such as a body, in or out of the boot.