Ms Geeson was last seen leaving a New Year's Eve party in Cambridge

Police say a witness reported seeing Sally Geeson, 22, travelling between Norwich and Sheringham on the day she disappeared - 1 January 2005.

The last firm sighting of Miss Geeson from Brookfields, Cambridge, was at the Hogshead pub in Regent Street.

Det Insp Garry Swain said police are taking the report of the sighting on the afternoon of 1 January seriously.

In a message to her flatmate early on New Year's Day, Miss Geeson wrote: "I've got into a car with someone please call me x".

Shortly afterwards she sent another text to a second friend which said: "Please help me x".

The messages took several hours to arrive because the mobile phone system was jammed with users sending new year greetings.

Sue Geeson appeals for her daughter to contact her

Miss Geeson's twin sister Julie has spoken of the "gut-wrenching" wait for news since her disappearance.

Julie Geeson recalled her last conversation with her sister, which occurred several days before she disappeared.

She said: "That was Wednesday when Mum took her back to Cambridge to take her shopping in town. She went to get her outfit for New Year's and she rang me because she was excited about what she'd bought."

Miss Geeson's mother Sue, who lives in Southend, Essex, said her daughter's Cambridge housemates called her on New Year's Day saying she had not come home.

Mrs Geeson said: "We tried to ring her phone but it is either switched off or the battery has died."

Det Sup Garry Swain, of Cambridgeshire Police, said Miss Geeson's phone went dead at 9.44am on Saturday 1 January - around eight hours after the last text message was sent.

Fight outside chip shop

Miss Geeson was last seen by her friend, a 24-year-old man from Romford, Essex, with whom she went to a New Year's Eve party at The Avery, known locally in Cambridge as The Hog's Head, at around 1am.

After leaving the pub the pair went to a nearby chip shop.

The man became involved in a fight outside the shop and when the fracas broke up Miss Geeson had vanished.

Mr Swain said a doorman at The Avery remembered seeing a woman fitting Miss Geeson's description go back inside the pub between 1am and 1.45am.

Specialist search teams and the force helicopter have been scouring the area around the pub and Miss Geeson's home in the Brookfields area of the city.