Madeleine McCann has been missing for a year

In the village of Rothley, Leicestershire, where the McCanns live, a service will be held at the parish church of St Mary and St John, where prayers will be said for Madeleine and other children missing around the world.

The little girl went missing on the evening of May 3, 2007, from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz where she and her twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, had been sleeping while her parents and some friends dined at a nearby restaurant.

The case has gripped the world as the hunt for the little girl who disappeared nine days before her fourth birthday spread across Europe and Africa following a high-profile campaign by the McCanns to find their daughter, including a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

Mr McCann, 39, said: "This is a last chance to capture a lot of information which has maybe gone into the investigation and we are not privy to.

"Clearly we need to know that everything has been done. What we are asking people to do is if you have given information to police, Crimestoppers, the Portuguese police, we are asking you to give it to us as well.

"We are a year down the line and seemingly no closer to finding Madeleine. We have got little bits of the jigsaw but huge gaps and we have a resource, we have set aside considerable resources on this task."

He added: "We will not accept Madeleine's death until there's concrete proof of that. The more searches we have done the stronger my belief that there's a better chance Madeleine is alive than dead."