The home address of murdered BBC television presenter Jill Dando was traced by a possible stalker using the internet, police have revealed.

Launching a fresh appeal for the person - or people - who tried to get information about Miss Dando's private life to come forward, police said someone had accessed a web directory which showed exactly where the presenter lived and where she was murdered.

The unknown person accessed the site - 192.com - in November 1998. Miss Dando was murdered five months later.

This was the only time someone had accessed Miss Dando's address through the directory that year, police said on Tuesday.

Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell, who is heading the inquiry, said he believed the internet search for her address could be linked to attempts to alter the presenter's utility accounts via the telephone.

In April 1998 a man contacted BT giving Miss Dando's ex-directory telephone number and address and asking for her line to be changed to his name.

On 1 February 1999 a man who called himself James, and said he was Miss Dando's brother, contacted electricity, gas and water companies all within 20 minutes trying to change bills to his name.

The man knew details of her bills including a 14-digit number for her electricity account.

'Obsessive behaviour'

The site 192.com, which carries only publicly available information, did not give details of her ex-directory number.

The firm's sales director, Alastair Crawford, said 192.com had contacted police the day after Miss Dando's death to inform them that someone had been using the site to try to find out her address.

He said details had been passed on, but added that the inquiry was probably done by a customer testing the service with a famous name rather than deliberately hunting the news presenter.

At at Scotland Yard press conference, Mr Campbell said that there was still no clear motive for the killing.

He said: "Are those the first steps in stalking or obsessive behaviour or first steps of someone contracted to kill Miss Dando."

The new details add weight to the theory that Miss Dando was killed by a stalker.

The 37-year-old presenter was shot once in the head on 26 April on the doorstep of her home in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, west London.