MISSING rock star Richey Edwards' sister said yesterday that a single point of police contact for the families of missing people would be a vital step in improving the current system.

Rachel Elias, who will speak on Thursday during the UK's first parliamentary public inquiry into support for relatives of missing people, said there were three changes she wanted.

As the inquiry's first day saw Kate McCann tell MPs that grieving families should not be left to search for their loved ones alone, Mrs Elias said everything must be done to find missing people.

'Firstly, a single point of contact in the police can help the family, while ensuring long term missing people are cross- matched against the unidentified database because they could well be dead,' she said

'Secondly, emotional support for families [is needed]. I think Missing People [the charity] are hoping to provide that through a specialist counselling service.

'Thirdly, [we should] fight for a change in legislation policy, campaign to bring in a Presumption of Death Act.'

In 2008 Ms Elias' parents had Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, declared legally presumed dead.

But in the absence of a body it can be difficult and costly to register a person's death or obtain a death certificate, without which families struggle to administer their missing loved one's estate, dissolve their marriage or claim benefits and life insurance.

She added: 'People are thrown into a nightmare with no evidence of someone coming back but they can't wind up their financial affairs.'

Declaring a missing person dead is a purely practical step, she said.

'We saw it as an end to his financial affairs. We still hope he is alive, and we still hope if he is dead, he will be recovered,' she said.

Edwards, who had spoken openly about bouts of depression and self harming, went missing from his London hotel on February 1, 1995, hours before the Blackwood-based band were due to fly to the US on a promotional tour.

When his car was found abandoned by the Severn Bridge two weeks later many assumed he had taken his own life.

'He was classed as a vulnerable adult because he had been in hospital prior to this,' Ms Elias said.

'But the search process didn't really reflect that. I think they just saw him as a man in a successful British band who had decided to go.' Mrs McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing from her family's holiday flat in the Algarve shortly before her fourth birthday, joined mothers of missing children yesterday

Calling for the Government to improve support, she said there was 'currently no legislation to protect missing people and their families left behind'.

Mrs McCann, 43, issued her appeal to ministers as Scotland Yard continues its review of the investigation into her daughter's disappearance in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

The official Portuguese inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008, although private detectives employed by the McCanns have continued the search.

'I don't think this should be the role of grieving parents,' she said.

Also calling for a single point of contact for families of missing people, Mrs McCann added: 'To be left in the dark when your child is missing and at risk is unbearable.' Holding up a picture of Madeleine, Mrs McCann said: 'If your house is burgled, you are automatically offered victim support with emotional, practical and legal assistance.

'If your child goes missing, you may get nothing. This parliamentary inquiry has the potential to change that.'

Organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, the inquiry will be held over four sessions.

Martin Houghton-Brown, chief executive of Missing People, said: 'This inquiry is a landmark opportunity for parliamentarians to ensure that families are able to access the full range of support that they so desperately need.'

Rebecca Coggins, whose Aberystwyth-born sister, Natalie Putt, went missing nearly seven years ago, said: 'For the Madeleines and Natalies of the world there is nothing ' there is no support, you are left on your own