The search for a British backpacker missing in New Zealand for a week has been called to a halt, police said today.

Rescue helicopters had been scouring a mountainous area of New Zealand's South Island after the helicopter in which 28-year-old Hannah Timings and pilot Campbell Montgomerie were flying lost contact with air traffic controllers last Saturday morning.

It is feared Ms Timings, from Cheltenham, and Mr Montgomerie, from Hamilton, New Zealand, fatally crashed in poor weather between Queenstown and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park.

Cloudy weather frustrated search efforts by rescue teams and police in Te Anau today said that the search has now been suspended pending further information.

A statement by Senior Sergeant Olaf Jensen: ''At the conclusion of day seven in the search for the missing Hughes 500 helicopter missing in Fiordland since 3 January the National Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Wellington have suspended the search.

'It must now presumed that the pilot Campbell Montgomerie aged 27 years from Hamilton and his passenger Hannah Rose Timings aged 28 years from Cheltenham, England, are dead.

'Two police staff remain at the forward search base in Te Anau to respond to any further information which may require a renewed search.'

He said the helicopter's disappearance and resulting search would now be subject of coroner's inquiry.

Rescuers spent 204 flying hours and 2,300 man hours searching the mountainous area where the four-seater privately-owned helicopter was lost.

Bryan Nicholson, a spokesman for the British High Commission in New Zealand, said earlier in the week that trying to find them really was like trying to find 'a needle in a haystack'.

Ms Timings, who worked as a furniture buyer in London between her travels, had been visiting friends in New Zealand since October and was due to return to the UK in March.

Her brother, Sam Timings, 25, described his sister as a seasoned traveller who could not settle for long and her father, Philip, has flown to New Zealand.

Tonight Sam said the family was still 'hoping and waiting' for any news.

It is understood that she had been dating Mr Montgomerie, who worked running tours around the island and flights for tourists from hotel to hotel.

Ms Timings and Mr Montgomerie, 27, took off at about 7.50am on Saturday 3 local time (1850 GMT Friday) from from Howden Hut, west of Queenstown, and were heading for Milford Sound.

Just under an hour later Mr Montgomerie radioed Milford Sound air traffic control saying he was in cloud and asked for directions through the mountains.

Police said contact was lost some six minutes later.

Hikers in Fiordland National Park, which has some of the most wild and dramatic scenery in New Zealand, reported seeing the helicopter early on Saturday morning but there have been no sightings since then.

Ms Timings studied at Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham before going to Bournemouth University to do furniture design.

Her mother and 18-year-old sister, who live in Winchester, are staying with relatives in Cheltenham where they are being kept up to date with the progress of the search.

Milford Sound, a crystal-clear fjord about 466 miles south of the capital, Wellington, draws tourists from around the world.

British couple Gordon and Angela Ross, from Ross-shire, were among six people who died when their sightseeing plane crashed into a mountain in the area in January 2002.

In 1989 two sightseeing planes, each carrying six Japanese tourists and a pilot, collided over Milford Sound. One plane landed safely but the other crashed, killing all on board.

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