Asuncion, Mar 8 (EFE).– Paraguayan media reported Tuesday that Madeleine McCann, the British girl who suddenly went missing in Portugal in 2007, has been found in the South American nation, though the Asuncion office of Interpol told EFE they know nothing about the private investigator said to have tracked down the girl.

The case of the missing girl caused a stir in the media after the daily ABC Color published an interview with the private eye, a British national named Miraz Ullah Ali Isa.

The newspaper said that Isa was in the town of Aregua last weekend, where, according to his report, the girl had been living for two months in the house of an unidentified woman.

In Aregua, some 28 kilometers (17 miles) from Asuncion, Isa took several photos, then left the country, according to the media.

In the interview, the man did not say what company he was working for nor whom he represented, though he did say there was a reward for whoever found the girl and provided a telephone number that was then published in the daily.

Nonetheless, inspector Luis Ignacio Arias of Interpol Paraguay told EFE Tuesday that his office has no information about the Isa’s identity nor any clues or facts about the girl’s supposed whereabouts in the South American country.

“There’s nothing concrete about that person,” Arias said, adding that Isa must have entered the country as a tourist and never approached the National Police or the Foreign Ministry.

The police said their office will launch an investigation into the supposed detective’s story and into his identity.

After the publication of the interview on Monday, Interpol agents did some checking in that city but found no trace of the missing girl.

“For the moment, there’s absolutely nothing,” said Interpol Paraguay chief Luis Ignacio Arias.

Arias also said that apparently there is “little truth” in the alleged detective’s account, adding that he did not communicate with Interpol or local authorities during the time he was in Paraguay.

“If he had a real interest in that search he should have been in communication with us or with the police,” Arias said.

The Interpol official added that the alleged private eye entered Paraguay as a tourist and was in the country from March 3-7, during which time he traveled to Aregua and took several photos.

During that time he granted the interview with ABC Color and left a phone number in Britain for anyone wanting to share details linked to the case, given that there is a reward for any information of that kind, Arias said.

He also said that, according to Interpol’s investigation, the man did not appear to be registered as a private investigator and the phone number he left belongs to a company from which he had been fired.

Little Madeleine was sleeping with her twin brothers in an apartment in the Portuguese town of Praia Da Luz, when she disappeared under mysterious circumstances while her parents were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant.

The parents then initiated an unprecedented global campaign to try to find their daughter, which has never ended. EFE