A former Shropshire convicted paedophile who is being investigated over Madeleine McCann’s disappearance said he was familiar with the layout of the Portuguese holiday complex where she went missing, it was reported.

Raymond Hewlett is alleged to have been staying around an hour’s drive from the McCanns’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3, 2007.

The McCanns’ investigation team wants to interview the 64-year-old in the next few days in the hope he can shed some light on the little girl’s disappearance.

A former soldier who met Hewlett at a campsite in Morocco in May 2007 told a national newspaper he admitted parking a van close to the McCann’s complex on several occasions.

Peter Verran, 46, said: “He brought Madeleine up straight away. He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her.

“He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, ‘Madeleine’s not in Morocco’.

“I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia Da Luz really well. He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying. He said he’d been there many times and had often parked his van close to the apartment.

“He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating when Maddie disappeared.”

Hewlett, formerly of Wellsfield, Woodside, Telford, is reportedly being treated for throat cancer in intensive care in hospital in the German city Aachen.

He was jailed several times for sexually assaulting young girls and is now wanted for questioning by British detectives in connection with a separate indecent assault.

The McCanns hope that once officers from West Yorkshire Police have questioned Hewlett, their investigators will speak to him.

Clarence Mitchell, Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesman, said: “Mr Hewlett has denied any involvement in Madeleine’s abduction. Our investigators hope he will see sense and co-operate by giving them whatever information needed so they can eliminate him from the investigation.”

By Peter Johnson