Portuguese police will on Tuesday search a reservoir inland from where British three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007.
Portugal's Judicial Police released a statement confirming local media reports that they would conduct the search at the request of the German authorities and in the presence of British officials.
Police were preparing to start searches at a dam in the southern Portuguese region of Algarve about 50 kilometres inland from the beach resort where Madeleine went missing as her parents and their friends dined at a nearby restaurant in 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday.
The search is expected to take two days, Portuguese media SIC Notícias reported.
On Monday, a road leading to the reservoir was closed and police tents were erected around the site.
The reservoir has been searched in relation to the McCann case before. In 2008, a Portuguese lawyer privately hired specialist divers to search the dam on a tip-off from "underworld" figures.
The lawyer, Marcos Aragao Correia, was not involved in the official investigation into Madeleine's disappearance and reported no leads resulting from the search.
German authorities last year formally identified German man Christian Brueckner as an official suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine.
Brueckner, a convicted child abuser and drug dealer, is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve from where Madeleine went missing.
German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead and that Brueckner was likely responsible for it. Brueckner has denied any involvement and has not been charged with any crime related to it.
A German court last month threw out additional charges against him related to other Portuguese child rape and sexual assault cases that meant the German prosecutors investigating the disappearance of Madeleine no longer had jurisdiction to investigate it.
Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann were questioned by Portuguese police as formal suspects in 2007, but police dropped their investigation the following year, citing a lack of evidence, and cleared them of any involvement.
Her parents have campaigned for information relating to their daughter's disappearance ever since.
The last major operation in Portugal relating to Madeleine's case was in 2014, when UK police examined bushland near the resort where she disappeared.
Earlier this month, the McCanns marked the 16th anniversary of her disappearance and her 20th birthday.
German authorities are expected to release a statement on Tuesday when the search of the reservoir begins.
ABC/wires
