Did Costa killer murder Milly?

Detectives believe 'Costa Killer' Tony Bromwich could have murdered Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

They are to carry out an exhaustive investigation to establish whether the serial sex attacker, who is accused of murdering two teenage girls in Spain, was in Britain when the 13-year-old was killed in March last year.

Mobile phone records, credit card bills and airline lists will be scrutinised, and relatives and friends of Bromwich will be interviewed.

Police believe Bromwich may have made a number of secret trips back to London since fleeing abroad six years ago.

The investigation into links between Bromwich and a number of unsolved murders and rapes was announced by the head of Scotland Yard's murder squad, Commander Andy Baker. He said last night: 'I can confirm that one of those murders is that of Milly Dowler.'

Milly - as she was always known, though her name was Amanda - disappeared from a railway station close to her home in Walton- on-Thames in March last year. Six months later her body was found 20 miles away in Hampshire.

Bromwich, 38, was jailed in 1986 for a string of sex attacks in London, when he was nicknamed 'The Holloway Strangler'.

He was released in 1991 but sent back to prison in March 1992 for robbing a woman at knifepoint.

It is believed he was freed in 1995, changed his name to Tony King and worked as a fitness instructor in Carshalton, Surrey.

Two years ago he is believed to have attacked a Hungarian au pair near a railway station in Leatherhead, Surrey, about 15 miles from where Milly was last seen.

The 21-year- old woman was grabbed from behind and threatened with rape. The attacker indecently assaulted her and ran off.

After CCTV pictures were shown on the BBC's Crimewatch UK programme, a number of viewers named Bromwich. But by the time police went to arrest him he was in Spain, and Crown Prosecution Service lawyers ruled there was insufficient evidence to seek extradition.

Bromwich was arrested ten days ago on the Costa del Sol, where he was working as a barman, for the alleged sex murders of Spanish teenagers Sonia Carabantes, 17, and Rocio Wanninkhof, 19.

Scotland Yard detectives will travel to Spain next month as part of a joint police investigation - codenamed Operation Washfield - into the possibility that Bromwich carried out other attacks in the UK.

It is thought they may interview Bromwich's wife Cecilia, 37, who yesterday admitted she shopped him to Spanish police over the murders of the two girls.

She told of her 'total shock, panic and horror' after her husband turned up with unexplained injuries days after Sonia was found dead.

Surrey Police sources said that Milly's murder did not appear to match Bromwich's usual method of attack, which was to assault young women from behind late at night.

Milly was abducted in daylight by someone driving a car or van.

Forty officers are still working on the murder investigation, which has been characterised by a frustrating lack of forensic evidence and ' quality' leads.

Police have no DNA of her killer and have no idea how she was killed, let alone whether she was sexually assaulted. Her clothes have never been found.

Detective Chief Superintendent Craig Denholm, who is leading the murder hunt, said: 'There is good evidence to suggest that Tony King (Bromwich) fled to Spain because he knew he was wanted by Surrey Police in connection with the Leatherhead assault. It is unlikely that he would have returned to the UK, and to Surrey in particular, with this knowledge.'

His sister Angela Tayler, 36, yesterday claimed he had not returned to the UK since he went on the run in Spain six years ago.