The suspect in the murder of British girl Madeleine McCann is to be moved to a prison in a different German state, where investigations into his alleged role in sex crimes are proceeding, prosecutors say.

Braunschweig prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters confirmed to the DPA news agency that the man would be moved from a prison in the northwestern state of Schleswig-Holstein to Lower Saxony.

“Whether and when charges will be laid in these cases cannot at this stage be predicted but I am confident that the relevant investigations will be more rapidly concluded than in the Maddie case, possibly over the next few months,” Mr Wolters said.

Earlier, the tabloid Bild reported that the suspect would be moved over the weekend from Kiel to Wolfenbuettel.

Ten days ago, a German court rejected the 43-year-old suspect’s appeal regarding a previous rape conviction.

He was found guilty late last year of tying up and raping a 72-year-old US woman in her house in the Portuguese resort of Praia de Luz in 2005.

It was there that Madeleine, a three-year-old, vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in 2007 in one of the world’s most high-profile missing persons cases.

The case remained a mystery for over a decade until German investigators in June identified the suspect, a convicted serial sex offender, and stated that Madeleine was presumed dead.

The suspected killer, who lived for a spell in Portugal, has been serving a prison sentence for a drug trafficking offence in Kiel that was due to end on January 7.

-AAP