A DNA test to confirm whether a girl seen in Belgium over a week ago was missing British four-year-old Madeleine McCann has proved inconclusive, Belgian justice officials said today.
Traces left on a bottle and a straw from which the girl was believed to have drunk were in fact from a male, prosecutors in the eastern town of Tongeren said.
"This does not necessarily mean that Maddie was not present. There is the possibility that the man with the girl drank up the bottle," they said in a statement.
A woman called police over a week ago after spotting a girl she believed was Madeleine at a roadside cafe with a Dutch-speaking man of about 40 and an English-speaking woman of around 25.
A prosecution official said the DNA had not produced any matches in databases and that the investigation remained open.
"We are seeing what tip-offs come in, although to date we have not had anything that has led to concrete results," she said.
Kate McCann told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in an interview to be broadcast today: "We haven't had any news to the contrary that Madeleine isn't alive, and that's very important.
"And there have been many cases of children that have been found much later than this so again that's reassuring — so the hope's still there."
She and her husband Gerry faced the cameras again yesterday to affirm their belief that their daughter was still alive amid new speculation she was killed on the night she vanished.
Portuguese newspapers reported that detectives now suspected the young girl was not abducted, but died in her family's holiday flat in the Algarve village of Praia da Luz.
Blood specks found in the apartment are now being tested to see if they came from the missing four-year-old, reports claimed. Sitting side by side, Kate and Gerry McCann spoke in subdued tones as they gave an interview to rebut suggestions that police now think Madeleine is dead.
Sightings of four-year-old Madeleine have been reported all over Europe and further afield since she was snatched from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal on May 3rd. Although so far none has proved positive, the young girl's mother said they helped her by demonstrating that people were still looking for her daughter.