A top ex-cop in the UK has shed light on what he believes happened to Madeleine McCann on that fateful 2007 day in Portugal.

Former Scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton has spoken to the Mirror having drawn on his three decades worth of experience of policing.

He said it is plausible that the then three-year-old wandered out of the apartment in the Algarve region, got involved in an accident, and died.

A second likely situation is that the child and her family were being stalked by a paedophile who then eventually swooped in and took her.

READ MORE: Petition calling for McCanns to be charged with neglect hits 130,000 signatures

Mr Sutton told the newspaper that kidnap via a trafficking gang is the most likely of scenarios.

He added: “Without any other information to go on, the most likely scenario when a three-year-old disappears into thin air is that someone close to her knows what happened.

“A trafficking ring is more likely than a lone paedophile or paedophile ring, but I think six and seven-year-old girls are much more at risk.”

The chances of a burglary gone wrong, though, are remote. He said: “If you have got a burglar who has gone into the apartment for material theft, the chances are once they find there are kids in there they will run a mile.”

READ MORE: Who is protecting Maddie's kidnapper?

The developments come in the same week an Australian TV show claims to have made a “breakthrough” in the search for Madeleine.

Channel 7’s Sunday Night show released a teaser clip of this weekend’s programme in which it promises to be a “landmark television event.”