BRUSSELS: Belgian authorities are taking seriously a reported sighting of missing British girl Madeleine McCann and have contacted Dutch police to help with the investigation, a local official said yesterday.

DNA test results are expected next week on a bottle taken from a restaurant where a girl resembling four-year-old Madeleine was seen drinking, local prosecutor Katja Van Doren said.

A child psychologist reported seeing the girl with a man and woman in the restaurant in the Dutch-speaking town of Tongeren, near the Dutch border east of Brussels.

The three people drove away in a black Volvo with Belgian plates, local police said, stressing that the number plate could be false.

The couple were said to have been acting in a suspicious manner.

Belgian police have issued an identikit picture of the man involved, said to be in his 40s with black hair and stubble on his prominent chin.

He was said to speak with a Dutch accent, while the woman, who also had dark hair, spoke to him in English.

Madeleine went missing on a family holiday in southern Portugal on May 3.

"We are taking it seriously and we are doing everything we can to investigate," Tongeren acting prosecutor Van Doren said of the reported sighting.

"The local police are investigating to try to see whether it was Madeleine.