The British police have today published new images of Madeleine McCann in an online video, which they hope will be viewed by internet users around the world.

The 60-second film is called "take a Minute for Madeleine" and contains images of her before she went missing as well as digitally altered images to show how Madeleine might look now, at the age of six, two and a half years after she went missing during a family holiday.

One of the images shows how she would look with dark hair and tanned skin, in case she has been living in north Africa.

The message, from the British Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), is available in English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish and is being supported by police agencies around the world.

The police hope that it will be spread around the world via blogs, personal e-mails and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Madeleine went missing on May 3rd 2007, just before her fourth birthday, whilst on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, in the Portugese Algarve. 

According to Jim Gamble, the director of CEOP, the video has been put together very carefully with the help of psychologists and its main aim is to convince the person who knows where Madeleine is but is hiding the secret, to come forward and clear their conscience.

"It's possible that the person we are trying to reach is a sentimental partner, a member of the family, friend or colleague of the person or persons who took part in Madeleine's disappearance", said Gamble.

"Keeping this information secret only increases the anguish Madeleine's family and friends are going through and increases the risk for other children", he added Gamble.