The parents of murdered Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe have spoken of their traumatic battle to finally lay their boy to rest.

Bruce and Denise Morcombe have released a new book about their 10-year battle to get justice for their son.

They finally achieved that in March when serial child sex offender Brett Cowan was handed a life sentence for abducting and murdering the 13-year-old on the Sunshine Coast in 2003.

The couple said the book would give readers a glimpse into some of the most harrowing things that flowed from Cowan’s brutal and cowardly crime.

One of the most difficult aspects for the couple to revisit was their fight to reclaim Daniel’s remains, which were discovered at a secluded Sunshine Coast farm in 2011.

It was more than a year before the Morcombe family was finally able to give their son a funeral.

Mr Morcombe has told reporters the family had a battle with authorities, who’d suggested Daniel’s remains would need to be kept as evidence until after Cowan’s trial, and possibly until after any appeal.

But he said the family simply would not accept that.

In the end, the boy’s remains were released before Cowan was convicted and he was buried with a full requiem mass attended by police and SES volunteers who had crawled through mud to find him.

“If the truth be known, we would be standing here now and still waiting for Daniel’s remains to be released to the family,” Mr Morcombe said at the launch in Brisbane on Tuesday.

“Those behind-the-scenes meetings illustrated to us in no uncertain terms that Daniel’s remains were evidence … they were termed ‘a thing’.”

The book, titled Where is Daniel?, has been dedicated to the families of missing persons and is being launched during National Missing Persons week.

Cowan is appealing his conviction.