Police in Britain said yesterday that two missing 10-year-old girls had spent a half-hour on the Internet shortly before they vanished five days ago.
Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells used Holly's home computer to go online for about 30 minutes at around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Det Supt David Hankins told reporters.
The girls were last spotted near Holly's home in Soham, Cambridgeshire, about an hour later.
Det Supt Hankins, who is leading the hunt by 250 officers for the youngsters, would not say whether any e-mails had been exchanged, and declined to release further details of what was a "significant line of inquiry".
He said he strongly believed the girls were alive and being held against their will.
"It is our belief these two girls are still alive and being held captive somewhere," he said. Det Supt Hankins told Sky News that police would stage a reconstruction of the girls' movements today and extend their search to the Fenlands area around Soham.
The parents of missing schoolgirl Amanda Dowler sent a message of support to the girls' parents on Friday. Their daughter, known as Milly, has been missing for more than four months.
"Our hearts go out to both sets of parents," Robert and Sally Dowler said in a statement.
"It is hard to imagine that anyone else would have to suffer the pain and anguish and desolation we have experienced since Milly went missing."
Amanda, who was aged 13 when she disappeared, was last seen at a railway station in Surrey on the way home from school, but a massive police hunt has so far produced no clues as to her whereabouts.
In the case of Holly and Jessica, police had initially thought the two best friends had strayed and taken refuge in a derelict site somewhere near the village.
But over the past few days they have said it has become increasingly likely the girls were abducted. Det Supt Hankins issued the strongest statement to date yesterday, saying he believed they had been kidnapped.
"It's incredible, impossible for us to believe that the two girls have disappeared off the face of the Earth. It defies belief they have suffered an accident of some sort," he told BBC TV.
He reiterated a direct appeal to any possible abductor to "reflect on what they've done to these girls and their families and to take steps to return them".
He said the youngsters' families were going through "sheer hell".