The search for missing British girl Madeleine McCann has taken a new twist with reports Scotland Yard detectives are going to Portugal to oversee digging around the resort where she went missing seven years ago.

A team of forensic officers will use radar equipment to look underground for clues to her disappearance, London’s Mirror newspaper has reported, citing police sources.

Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have been told of the plans to search three sites near the Praia da Lux resort but are not expected to go to Portugal.

Three-year-old Madeleine went missing from her bed on May 3, 2007, during a family holiday in Portugal.