Sydney  - An Australian woman who may know something about the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal is being sought in Australia.

Police in Sydney said Saturday that they had received information about a woman who is similar in description to an Australian being sought by private investigators engaged by the McCann family.

The woman being sought reportedly spoke to a British man outside a bar in Barcelona, Spain, three days after Madeleine went missing from her family's rented holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

According to private detectives, the woman mistook the British man for someone else and asked him if he was in Barcelona to deliver a "new daughter."

The private detectives haven't travelled to Australia.

"On Friday afternoon, a Sydney woman provided a formal statement to detectives at a Sydney police station," a New South Wales police spokesman told Australia's AAP news agency.

"She claims to know the identity of the woman being sought by the private investigators attached to the McCann family. The New South Wales Police Force will forward the information received to the Australian Federal Police for follow up."

Kate and Gerry McCann continue to search for their daughter despite the Portuguese police closing their investigation into the case a year ago. (dpa)