Fresh claims have emerged out of Europe that Madeleine McCann, the British three-year-old who went missing in 2007, was killed.

A 43-year-old German prisoner who travelled around Portugal in a camper van is the focus of a new Scotland Yard investigation, the BBC reports.

Police reportedly now believe he was in the area where the three-year-old was last seen in May 2007.

The Yard today appealed for information about the van and the suspect's other vehicle, a Jaguar.

The man transferred the Jaguar to someone else's name the day after she vanished.

Mark Saunokonoko from Nine News in Australia, who has a podcasts dedicated to the case, told Heather du Plessis-Allan this is the biggest development since the case was shut down.

"There's a lot of other circumstantial evidence that you would have to overlook in order to think that this German guy is the culprit."

Mr Saunokonoko said he interviewed the lead detective on the case back in 2007 Goncalo Amaral last year, who claimed the British Police were keen to wrap up the case, and were to use a German paedophile as a scape goat, who was known to be in the area at the time.

"It was really unusual to hear what Goncalo Amaral was saying 14 months ago suddenly happened overnight."

Police said the case remained a "missing persons" investigation because it doesn't have "definitive evidence" as to whether Madeleine is alive or not.

However, German investigators at the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), have reportedly classed it as a "murder inquiry".