At this time we don't have any report that they are demanding 200,000 pesos. The initial demand was for 100,000 pesos

Captain Ferdinand Bajarin Philippine army

Captain Ferdinand Bajarin said: "At this time we don't have any report that they are demanding 200,000 pesos. The initial demand was for 100,000 pesos."

He added that the girl was being held by a group led by a Commander Ayub, a regional commander with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Moro is the main insurgent group on Basilan island in the south of the country, where Eiman's father, Douglas Grant, owns a home with his Filipino wife, Mina.

Foreign Office warnings

Mr Grant, a hospitality manager from Inverness, flew from Scotland to the Philippines earlier this week to join his wife in defiance of Foreign Office warnings about the strife-torn island.

Eiman (front), her parents and baby sister

The military said at the weekend that the kidnapping appeared to have been instigated by relatives of Mina Grant as part of an ongoing land dispute.

Other, contradictory reports said Muslim extremists had demanded the return of "ancestral lands" occupied by the Grants.

The military in the Philippines said at the weekend it was closing in on the rebels responsible.

Mr Grant dismissed allegations about his wife's involvement as "total garbage" and said the government might require outside help to resolve the kidnap.

Armed gang

Mrs Grant previously recounted how an armed gang tricked its way into her home last Wednesday.

They demanded 100,000 pesos (�1,300) and when she could not produce, it they snatched Eiman and ordered her family to secure the money.

Former soldier Mr Grant, who has a 22-month-old daughter Khadija with Mina Grant, had settled in the Philippines with his wife and family but was forced to return to Britain last August to care for his elderly parents.

Mrs Grant and her daughters were waiting to join her Mr Grant in the UK when Eiman was abducted.