POLICE were today searching the home of a builder from Latvia whose disappearance is a new line of inquiry in the hunt for missing schoolgirl Alice Gross, the Evening Standard reports.

Arnis Zalkalns, 41, vanished after leaving the Ealing flat he shares with his partner and their one-year-old daughter two weeks ago.

He regularly cycled to work along the isolated Grand Union Canal towpath in nearby Hanwell, where Alice, 14, was last seen alive, seven days before he went missing on September 3.

Mr Zalkalns’ partner, Katerina Laiblova, described him as a loving family man who doted on his daughter.

Miss Laiblova said she had conducted her own inquiries to find him and discovered he had not accessed his bank account since going missing, the Standard reports.

Forensic teams were today searching the basement and garden of the four-storey house, divided into several flats, where they have lived for the past six months as a “matter of routine”.