MILITARY police carried out a "cover-up" after a botched investigation into the tragic disappearance of a toddler, a North-East MP alleged tonight (November 8).

Iain Wright, the Hartlepool MP, made the claim more than 31 years after Katrice Lee went missing from a German supermarket, on her second birthday.

Leading a Commons debate, the Labour MP demanded an independent investigation into the way the Royal Military Police (RMP) mishandled the case - which is now the subject of a fresh RMP probe.

And he told MPs: "I am concerned that embarrassments in the way in which the case was initially dealt with, and then subsequently handled over many years, led to a cover up of the facts.

"A reinvestigation by the Royal Military Police - into a case handled by the Royal Military Police - does not fill me with confidence that all possible criticisms and flaws will be brought to light.  Only an independent and impartial review will do that."

But, in reply  Mark Francois, a defence minister, said a civilian police force would only be allowed to review the RMP investigation "at an appropriate point".

Speaking afterwards, a furious Richard Lee - Katrice's father, a former soldier from Belle Vue, in Hartlepool, who has devoted his life to finding her - condemned the MoD, saying: "I'm totally disgusted.

"There is still no admission of the faults in the case and, after it took me 31 years to get to a debate in parliament, they've cast me back to the people who covered it up."

Meanwhile, Caroline Dinenage, a Conservative MP in Hampshire - where Katrice's mother, Sharon, lives - criticised David Cameron for a letter which said he was "too busy" to meet her.

She said: "It is surely not right to cherry-pick which desperate, grief-stricken family of a lost child is more worthy than others of face-time with the prime minister?"

Katrice was born on an Army base near the German town of Paderborn, Dortmund, where Mr Lee was posted as a sergeant in the 15/16th King's Royal Hussars.

On the morning of Katrice's second birthday - on November 28, 1981 - she went with her parents and aunt Wendy on a shopping trip to the local Naafi store to pick up food for a birthday tea.

Mr Lee waited outside but, as the sisters went to the checkout, Katrice vanished. The military police concluded she had drowned in a nearby river, but the family describe this as "simply implausible" - and a body was never recovered.

Last night, Mr Francois pledged to arrange a meeting with himself, Brigadier Warren, and his investigative team, at the RMP's headquarters in Wiltshire.

And he said, of the investigation: "They are doing everything practically possible, given the time that has elapsed, to get to the bottom of what happened to Katrice."