Viable leads in McCann case: Family spokesperson

MERLBOURNE - Detectives have "a number of viable leads" for an Australian woman believed to hold vital clues to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a family spokesman says.

Clarence Mitchell says there are several tips worth pursuing out of the hundreds of leads sent in from the public about the woman wanted in connection with the British child's disappearance in Portugal in 2007.

"An awful lot of these tip-offs and bits of information are well-meaning, but ultimately come to nothing," he told the Nine Network this morning.

"But out of all this we have had dozens of names for the woman we're looking for given to us ... and out of that, the detectives have a number of viable leads.

"That's their description: a number of viable leads that they are pursuing as a priority."

One of the hundreds of tips sent in included a Sydney woman telling NSW police that her friend in Melbourne looked similar to the Victoria Beckham-lookalike investigators hope to find.

But the friend told AAP she was shocked to have been connected to the story.

Standing outside her home on Saturday evening, 53-year-old Judith Aron denied she had any involvement in the case.

Coincidently, she lives on Madeline Street, but she insisted that the media and her friend had "got it wrong".

Mr Mitchell said Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann were aware of the recent tip-offs and reported sightings across Australia.

"We will get some reports that do come to nothing, others though could turn out to be highly significant," he said.

The man heading the McCanns' search for their daughter, Dave Edgar, said the case had taken a new turn.

The woman investigators are looking for reportedly spoke to a British man outside a bar in Barcelona, Spain, three days after the four-year-old girl went missing from her family's rented holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

The British man, who did not want to be identified, had told detectives of his brief conversation with the Australian or New Zealand-sounding woman.

He said she appeared agitated and kept pacing outside the El Rey de la Gamba restaurant-bar as if she was waiting to meet somebody.

The British holiday-maker said she asked him: "Are you here to deliver my new daughter?"

While investigators do not believe the woman is a suspect in the case, they do believe what she told the man could be significant to their investigation.

A sketch of the woman was released and she is described as being in her mid-30s, looking similar to the former Spice Girl and speaking fluent Spanish.

- AAP