GERMAN police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have searched a garden plot in Hannover in connection with their probe, prosecutors said.

Julia Meyer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, confirmed local media reports that police investigators had been at the site since Monday with an excavator.

“The procedure is taking place in connection with our investigation regarding Maddie McCann,” she said.

Meyer said she could not give any further details on the procedure, adding only that police would “still need some more time to finish”.

McCann was three when she disappeared from an apartment while her family was on holiday in the seaside town of Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve in 2007.

German authorities said last month they had identified a 43-year-old German citizen as a suspect and are investigating him on suspicion of murder.

The suspect, currently in prison in Germany, spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine went missing. He has two previous convictions for “sexual contact with girls”, authorities have said.

They have not released his name, but he has been widely identified by German media as Christian B.