Little Madeleine may be in Chile

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Madeleine McCann. Photo:EFE

Police said on Friday they are checking a report of an alleged sighting in northern Chile of British girl Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in May from the Portuguese sea resort of Praia da Luz.

Police chief Segundo Leyton, head of the police unit specialised in the search of missing people, said the investigation was ordered after a man, who was not identified by name, reported seeing "a couple of foreigners" with a girl who looked like Madeleine in the city of Vicuna, 500 kilometres, (350 miles) north of Santiago.

Leyton said, the unidentified man, a refrigeration technician, told police that the man he saw looked very much like a suspected kidnapper of Madeleine whose artist's sketch was released recently by the girl's parents.

Leyton told AP Television there is "similarity of 90-percent" between the man spotted in Vicuna and the artist's sketch of the suspected kidnapper. "The physical signs of the child are coincident with the minor in question," he said.