Kate and Gerry McCann claim they are the victims of a smear campaign as passages from their police interviews have been leaked.

While the McCanns were in Brussels supporting a child alert system, a Spanish television journalist made public parts of the interviews they gave immediately after Madeleine disappeared.

The leak revealed that hours before her disappearance, Madeleine asked her Mum: "Why didn't you come when we were crying last night?"

The McCanns are angry about the timing of the leak and described it as a "blatant" attempt to smear them.

They called for the Portuguese Justice Ministry to launch an internal investigation into the revelations, which would be a serious breach of the country's strict judicial secrecy laws.

In her first interview with Portuguese detectives, Mrs McCann spoke about a conversation she had with Madeleine that morning.

She told police: "While we were having breakfast, Madeleine said: 'Mum, why didn't you come when we were crying last night?'."

She added: "Gerry and I talked about it for several minutes and decided to watch over the children more carefully at night."

Friends of the McCanns said the couple were "puzzled" by Madeleine's remark because she had not apparently been crying when they called in for regular 20-minute checks from the restaurant across the pool where they dined each night during their holiday.

They said that one of the McCanns' friends, Rachael Oldfield, had been in the adjoining flat, on the other side of Madeleine's wall, all evening and heard no crying.

The couple also insist Madeleine was not speaking angrily and they did not take it as a reproach. Her reference to "we" is understood to have referred to Madeleine and her younger brother Sean.

Friends said they now believe the comment could even be a clue that an intruder was in the flat on the night before Madeleine disappeared and briefly disturbed the children before fleeing.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Kate and Gerry have been utterly honest and utterly open with the police and all of their statements from the moment that Madeleine was taken.

"The very fact that the comment from Madeleine is now in the public domain is entirely because they themselves told the police about it at the time.

"It is more than curious that this comment, taken in isolation and out of context, that has been in the police file for some 11 months, should now emerge on the very day that they are in Brussels trying to improve children's welfare and child safety."

The Policia Judiciaria interviews were leaked through journalist Nacho Abad, of Spanish television programme Ana Rosa Quintana.

Mr Abad said he believed the interview transcripts confirmed the McCanns' innocence, adding: "It is their opportunity to tell the real truth, I hope it's good for them."

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.