Detectives have quashed claims that remains have been found linked to the murder of a backpacker who was shot dead more than 21 years ago.

Peter Falconio, who lived in Hove with his girlfriend Joanne Lees, was ambushed and murdered on an Australian desert highway in 2001.

University of Brighton graduate Peter’s body was never found despite repeated searches.

Initial reports claimed that bone fragments had been discovered close to the suspected murder site in Alice Springs, in Australia's Northern Territory.

But police in the area now say the reports, first revealed in the Sydney Morning Herald, are "factually incorrect" and that no remains had been recovered at all.

The force said: “No human remains have been located by Northern Territory Police, and a search is not currently being conducted.

“Current media reports are factually incorrect.”

Aged just 28, Peter was shot dead by Bradley Murdoch on a remote stretch of highway in the Outback.

Peter’s girlfriend Joanne, now 47, had a gun pointed at her head and was beaten and bound by the attacker.

Other remains were found in 2003, 2004 and 2008, but none could be linked to Peter.

Peter would have turned 50 on Tuesday.

Last year, his mum Joan, 75, appealed to "anyone with a conscience" to reveal where her son's remains are.

Despite multiple searches for the tourist's body over the years, police in Australia’s Northern Territory had not been able to track it down.

Murdoch is serving life in jail for the murder and the abduction of Peter’s girlfriend Joanne Lees, who managed to escape.

DNA in bloodstains on her clothes linked Murdoch to the crime after he was arrested in Adelaide in 2003.

It is believed that Murdoch disposed of Peter’s body between Alice Springs and Broome, 1,000 miles away in Western Australia, an area covered by a vast desert.

Murdoch refuses to tell cops where the body is located and has maintained that he is innocent.