Detectives have admitted for the first time that they have no suspects in the hunt for the kidnappers of Madeleine McCann, as a Portuguese court is expected to hear the first evidence of her abduction today.

One of the officers leading the investigation has told The Times that it has yet to offer a definite line of inquiry linked to any individual. Photographs taken by holidaymakers in the resort where Madeleine disappeared are now being collected and studied by police.

Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa said that the Policia Judiciária had three lines of inquiry, one of which is believed to include abduction for sexual purposes. “We are pursuing three hypotheses which are things that came up during the investigation and are considered consistent. We are not seeking any suspects,” he said. “We do not know if it is Portuguese or foreign people that are involved. We are receiving help from several international forces.”

Officers hope to find images of possible abductors in the background of pictures taken in the Ocean Club as they concentrate their inquiries on the 400 staff and guests at the resort in the four weeks before Madeleine’s disappearance. The family spent most of their time by the resort’s pool rather than the nearby beach.

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Police have already recovered photographs taken by Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, and from friends who were staying with them in Portugal. The couple were questioned by police on Thursday about their lifestyle and why Madeleine was left alone in an apartment with the patio doors unlocked while they dined at a restaurant.

The first court hearings into the abduction could be held today with a judge expected to question British tourists who were staying at the same resort as the McCann family when their daughter was abducted 11 days ago.

The judge has already started to examine the witness statements given to the police by Mr and Mrs McCann and the friends who had travelled with them from Britain to Praia da Luz. The police have emphasised that they are looking for inconsistencies and overlooked evidence and that the friends, four women and three men, are witnesses and not suspects.

Speculation that Madeleine has been taken out of Portugal increased after the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in Britain included Arabic in its an appeal for any information about the girl. “ Detectives have now ruled out what were believed to have been two key lines of inquiry, he said. There was “no information to support a link” with a blonde woman and two men who were caught on CCTV at a petrol station outside Praia da Luz on the night Madeleine disappeared. They have also discarded any link with a man who was taking photographs of little blonde girls in the resort of Sagres two days earlier.

The only active line of police investigation in Praia da Luz is the search for a white van after witnesses said that they had seen a similar vehicle parked outside the McCanns’ apartment in the days before Madeleine was abducted.

Mr McCann, a cardiologist, and his wife, a GP, left their apartment unaccompanied yesterday for the first time since their daughter disappeared. The couple walked half a mile to the resort’s sandy beach after telling friends that they wanted to restore some normality to their lives.

They have been joined in Praia da Luz by Father Paul Seddon, of the Our Lady of Compassion church in Formby near Liverpool, who married the couple and baptised Madeleine.

He went with Mrs McCann as she attended Sunday Mass at the local church, the morning after husband Gerry gave an impassioned address about his hopes of seeing Madeleine to mark her fourth birthday.

The hunt for Madeleine has been the biggest police investigation in Portuguese history with hundreds of officers involved in the searches and 100 detectives still working on the case.

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