Last updated at 00:37am on 18th October 2007

The parents of Madeleine McCann do not believe their daughter is “probably” dead, despite reports saying they do, they have insisted.

Yesterday the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell stated: “Kate and Gerry are realistic enough to know that there is a probability she is dead.”

However later yesterday Gerry McCann insisted that while the couple are of course aware of the possibility, they still could not accept it.

“Contrary to some other reports Kate and I do NOT accept that Madeleine is ‘probably’ dead,” Mr McCann wrote on his blog yesterday.

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Madeleine McCann: Her parents Kate and Gerry have clung to the hope that she is still alive

“We know it is a possibility, however the fact there is no evidence Madeleine has been seriously harmed gives us ongoing hope that she will be found alive.”

Kate and Gerry McCann have always clung to the hope the four-year-old will be found alive, and have never conceded that – statistically – Madeleine was probably dead within hours of her disappearance from their Algarve holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3.

Yesterday Mr Mitchell added: “They have not given up hope that she could still be alive. But human nature is that you always fear the worst and they need to know what has happened.”

The couple will continue to campaign for their daughter’s safe return, Mr Mitchell said, and an £80,000 poster campaign was launched yesterday to target remote villages in Southern Portugal and Spain.

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Kate and Gerry McCann: ‘realistic enough to know that there is a probability Madeleine is dead’

Despite the widespread publicity surrounding her disappearance, Mr and Mrs McCann believe there are still some people who have not heard of her.

Portuguese police yesterday visited a reservoir known as the Barragem da Bravura, or Wilderness Reservoir, 15 miles from Praia da Luz.

The new head of the investigation, Paulo Rebelo, is said to feel the 2.5mile wide reservoir was not examined properly in May, when up to 300 officers searched for Madeleine.

A computer used by Gerry McCann has been seized by detectives who want to see which websites were visited after Madeleine disappeared, the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha said yesterday.

Friends of the McCanns said the computer was used only to store a database of journalists’ numbers.