Parents release new footage of missing Madeleine

LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) The parents of abducted 4-year-old Madeleine McCann released new video footage of their daughter taken before her disappearance in Portugal, before heading to Rome for a meeting with the Pope.

The video clips, taken on a mobile phone, show Madeleine climbing the stairs onto a flight at East Midlands Airport and then sitting on an airport bus in the Algarve.

The footage is the latest attempt by her distraught parents Kate and Gerry McCann to maintain public awareness of the case of their daughter, who disappeared on May 3 from a holiday resort on the Algarve.

She was snatched in the evening from an apartment as her parents ate at a restaurant about 100 yards away.

Tomorrow, the McCanns, both Catholics, will meet Pope Benedict at the end of his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square in Rome.

Traditionally, such meetings take place in front of St Peter's Basilica when the Pope greets people in the front rows of a special section near the papal platform and are not considered private audiences.

The parents have said they hoped to draw profound strength from any audience as well as helping to publicise the campaign to bring Madeleine home.

Britain has been gripped by the case and photographs of the blonde-haired child have rarely been off the newspaper front pages since her abduction.

Yesterday, a giant inflatable billboard publicising Madeleine's disappearance was erected on a beach at Praia da Luz close to where she was snatched.

REUTERS NC KP1817