A veteran former Scotland Yard detective with experience of missing persons cases has said Spanish police searching for British teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife must re-examine one area.

Graham Wettone, who served in the Metropolitan Police for three decades, has followed the investigation closely since the 19-year-old disappeared on June 17 after attending a three-day dance music festival on the island.

Jay, an apprentice bricklater from Lancashire, has not been seen since driven to an Airbnb in the village of Masca by the two Britons after a party in Playa de las Americas.

Little is known about the two unnamed men, only that they are in their 30s and early 40s and have been questioned by Spanish investigators and allowed to return to Britain.

Wettone told MailOnline: “They seem to be focusing primarily on the fact that they were told he wandered off into the mountain, but we are now almost two weeks in, and nothing has been found up there.

“I would hope that they have at least secured the Airbnb because if evidence is there then it will need to be gathered.

“But to be honest, I would even go back further to the days leading up to his disappearance – have they checked his bank accounts for anything untoward in the hours before he went missing.

“Were there any patterns forming that would point to him going wandering off but the fact he is said to have done that just doesn’t square with me.

“Was there anything sinister and untoward there, that would have made him go off with these two men, is there anything in his past that needs looking at more fully.”

Wettone urged Spanish police to accept the offer of assistance from British police to continue the search.

He continued: “That is where help from Lancashire would have been vital, they would have resources to look into his background.”

In an update on Saturday, Cipriano Martin, head of the Civil Guard’s Greim mountain rescue unit, said the two mystery men “have been spoken to and they don’t have any relevance whatsoever for the case”.

Wetton said after two weeks of searching without success Spanish authorities should return to their starting point but keep an open mind about other explanations for the teenager’s disappearance.

“It seems to me on the face of it that they are just focusing on the mountain, but I would hope they are looking at other avenues and those include criminality,” he said.

“I think I would have put some form of block on that road to stop and ask witnesses if they had seen anything, it was 9am so I would have thought people would be around.”

The morning of his disappearance Jay,attempted to make the 11-hour walk back down south to Los Cristianos where he was staying after missing the bus.

The last person to hear from Jay was his friend Lucy Law, who he was on holiday with. She phoned him on the morning of July 17 as he attempted the journey southward to where they were staying, saying that he was in desperate need of water and his phone was about to die. The call then cut out and no one has heard from him since.

The Guardia Civil announced on Sunday that they have called off their search after almost two weeks of searching for the missing teenager.

However, they insist they will continue looking, and the case is still open.