Police told The Telegraph they had consulted several psychologists and linguistic experts but were no closer to establishing his nationality. Interpol is also on the case. They are pinning their hopes on the discovery of his father's body, which the boy said he had buried in the forest and could provide important fingerprint clues. "We have tried psychologists – as a means of getting more information from him – but without success," confirmed Klaus Shubert, a Berlin police spokesman.



"We just don't know if he's British or from elsewhere," said Mr Schubert. "He speaks English but it seems his accent is hard to pin down."



"The important thing is that he seems OK and is in good condition. The rest we will have to wait for. We are making inquiries but it could take some time," he added. On Monday it emerged that after telling his story to City Hall staff, the teenager was shown the door and instructed how to reach a youth support centre using public transport. A civil servant who was the first to speak at length with the boy on his arrival at the administrative centre said that he was a ‘‘normal looking teenager’’ but it quickly emerged that he had an extraordinary story to tell. ‘‘He didn’t look at all like a vagrant - he didn’t smell, he was clean, his clothes were clean but he simply didn’t know anything about who he was,’’ said the female office worker who was called to front desk by security guards because she speaks English.

Carrying a rucksack and sleeping bag, the teenager walked into the impressive building near the central Alexanderplatz at about 4pm on September 5. ‘‘He said he needed help, that he didn’t know where to go and had no one in the world to look after him. I tried to find out details about where he was from but he just didn’t know,’’ said the civil servant. The teenager, described as blond and blue-eyed and about 5ft 11in, said he only knew that his first name was Ray and that he was 17 years old. It was the strangest encounter I’ve ever had and I do hope they can find out more about him. ‘‘He had only a few words of German but was completely fluent in English, and said that his father had told him it was an important language,’’ said the civil servant, who asked not to be named.

‘‘Although he seemed to be a native English speaker, I detected some sort of accent.’’ The boy told the woman he had travelled with his father, who it is thought was named Ryan, for ‘‘as long as he could remember’’ and after his death had followed his compass north. ‘‘He seemed calm, not scared, but quiet. He said he had been told to go to Berlin if he needed help and had taken several weeks to walk here,’’ she added. Police said the boy claimed he had been living in a forest for ‘‘at least five years’’ following the death of his mother in a car crash, that his father had died in a fall and he had buried him in a shallow grave. The woman contacted child welfare services and was told to direct him to a crisis centre in another part of the city.

‘‘I printed off a map for him, wrote some instructions and told him how to buy a ticket for the U-bahn [the underground train]. He pulled some coins from his pocket and asked if it was enough and then I sent him on his way. It was the strangest encounter I’ve ever had and I do hope they can find out more about him.’’ At the Jugendnotdienst youth shelter, in the Charlottenburg district, where the teenager was sent, it has emerged the boy mixed with others but spoke very little. One German teenager living there remembered his stay. ‘‘He was here for a few days, possibly a week before being transferred elsewhere,’’ said the youth. He only spoke a few words of German so we couldn’t really communicate but we watched television together and shared some cigarettes.’’ The centre's manager said the boy had appeared to adapt quickly to sleeping in a comfortable bed and taking regular showers. The Telegraph, London