BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - The parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann on Thursday called for a Europe-wide alert system for abducted children.

Kate and Gerry McCann said such a system could have helped locate their daughter, who disappeared from a Portuguese resort last May.

"Time is of the essence in cases of missing children," Kate McCann told reporters in the European Parliament in Brussels after talks with MEPs.

The McCanns, facing up to the impending first anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter -- who went missing just before her fourth birthday -- said they remained hopeful that she is still alive.

The disappearance of the little girl on May 4 prompted a worldwide publicity campaign by her parents -- who were themselves classified as formal suspects by the Portuguese police in September. They have strongly denied any involvement.

"There is still hope... We have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Madeleine has come to any harm," McCann added.

The McCanns are supporting the implementation of an "amber alert" system which would swiftly deliver photographs of a missing child and any suspected kidnapper along with details of the case to authorities elsewhere in the EU.

The idea is not new, and has support from the European Commission as well as many MEPs.

Similar systems are already in use in four EU member states, notably France.

The McCanns presented the European parliamentarians with a statement in support of bringing the EU-wide alert system which they hope at least half of the 785 Euro deputies will sign to put pressure on the 27 EU member states to accept the proposal.

They told the EU lawmakers that a European system could be modelled on the one in the United States which they said had helped recover 68 kidnapped children there in 2007 alone. --AFP