PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal, 8 September 2007 — In a shocking twist, the mother of a four-year-old British girl missing since May was named a suspect and called in for questioning yesterday by police along with the child’s father, after traces of blood were found in their rental car.

The girl’s aunt said police suggested Madeleine McCann might have been killed accidentally and offered the mother a plea deal if she confessed.

Kate McCann was questioned for more than four hours in a second straight day of interrogation into the disappearance of Madeleine in southern Portugal.

The case of Madeleine has gripped the world since her disappearance from a Portuguese holiday resort on May 3. Residents and expatriates alike in Saudi Arabia prayed that she would be found alive and reunited with her parents.

“God willing, even with the blood evidence I hope the poor girl is still alive,” said Ismaeel, a Pakistani in Jeddah’s Al-Faisaliah district.

Stars had made televised appeals, while videos about the missing toddler were played at European sports events, and newspapers and businessmen in Britain and Portugal have offered rewards totaling more than $5.27 million.

Kate McCann’s husband, Gerry, followed her into the police station for a separate round of questioning. Friends and relatives said the mother told them she had been named a formal suspect and was offered a deal if she confessed, and that Gerry McCann was told he would likely also be named a suspect.

“They tried to get her to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer — ‘If you say you killed Madeleine by accident and then hid her and disposed of the body, then we can guarantee you a two-year jail sentence or even less,’” Gerry McCann’s sister, Philomena, told ITV news.

A police spokesman, Olegario Sousa, confirmed to The Associated Press that police had named a new suspect, but would not say it was Mrs. McCann. He cited privacy laws in declining to comment further.

The couple strenuously professed their innocence yesterday.

The day’s developments marked a dramatic turn in a case that has pulled at the world’s heartstrings for months, ever since Mrs. McCann ran screaming from a hotel room saying her daughter had disappeared. The McCanns, both doctors from central England, said they were dining at the time in a hotel restaurant, but returned frequently to check on Madeleine and her twin two-year-old siblings.

Since then, the McCanns have toured Europe with photos of Madeleine and the child’s stuffed animals and clothing, even meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Until yesterday, suspicion had focused on a British man who lived near the hotel from which Madeleine disappeared and who was the only formal suspect. Justine McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the family, said the police allegations against Mrs. McCann did not add up, since the rental car with the alleged blood evidence had not been acquired until 25 days after Madeleine’s May 3 disappearance. Gerry McCann called the allegations against his wife “ludicrous.”

“We will fight this all the way, and we will not stop looking for Madeleine,” he wrote on the couple’s website yesterday.