Police in Portugal are searching for the the young daughter of a Scottish doctor.

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from her Portuguese holiday apartment while her parents dined nearby.

She was last seen sleeping soundly by her Glasgow-born father Gerry at around 9pm on Thursday night at the Ocean Club resort in the seaside village of Praia Da Luz in the south-western Algarve.

But at 10pm when her mother Kate went to check, she found the shutter slid up, the bedroom window open and her daughter - described as "happy-go-lucky" - gone.

Fellow holidaymakers, staff from British travel firm Mark Warner, which has run the resort for two years, and police spent most of the night searching frantically for the toddler.

Dogs were brought in, the Spanish and border police and airports were notified and volunteer teams continued to comb the village, resort and beach today for clues as to the little girl's whereabouts.

Fears are now growing that Madeleine was taken against her will. Her parents, both 38 and doctors, have accused Portuguese police of not doing enough to find her.

Madeleine, who turns four next Friday, and her two-year-old twin brother and sister Sean and Amelie were left in their apartment alone as their parents dined at the tapas restaurant 200 yards away.

The resort offered a creche service but the couple opted to leave the children sleeping at the apartment, taking turns to check on them at regular intervals.

Madeleine's aunt, Trish Cameron, who lives in Dumbarton near Glasgow, said her brother, Gerry, called her last night "breaking his heart".

She said his wife had gone to check on the children and "came out screaming".

"He said 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'.

"The door was lying open, the window in the bedroom and the shutters had been jemmied open.

"Nothing had been touched in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports.

"They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her."

Mrs Cameron will join her mother from Manchester together with Mrs McCann's parents, Mr and Mrs Healy to travel out to Portugal.

Mrs Cameron described Madeleine as a "lovely wee girl".

Family friend Jill Renwick told GMTV the McCanns had chosen their holiday destination carefully, and travelled there with a group of other families with young children.

She said: "This is the first time they have done this. They are very, very anxious parents and very careful and they chose Mark Warner because it is a family-friendly resort."

Mr and Mrs McCann met in Glasgow. Mr McCann is a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester who colleagues today described as "popular and hardworking", and Mrs McCann, from Liverpool, is a GP in Latham House Medical Practice in Melton Mowbray.

The British Ambassador to Portugal, John Stephen Buck, was travelling to the Algarve on Friday afternoon, as was Mark Warner UK Operations Director Craig Mayhew and a counsellor.

Ocean Club manager John Hill said police showed no signs of letting up in their search, and the McCanns remain at the police station in Portimao helping police piece together what has happened.

Mr Hill said: "My focus is now on supporting the family and their friends here. They are just devastated."