Detectives have had a "massive" response to a television appeal for more information on serial killer Peter Tobin.

The BBC Crimewatch appeal on Monday night featured a woman who claimed Tobin put something in her drink before assaulting her in a Glasgow tenement in 1968. She contacted police after recognising a magazine photo of the 63-year-old in his younger years.

Tobin is serving three life sentences for the murders of schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, 15, 18-year-old Dinah McNicol and 23-year-old Angelika Kluk.

On Tuesday, Detective Superintendent David Swindle from Strathclyde Police - who is leading the UK-wide investigation into Tobin's past - said: "As a result of the appeals both through last night's Crimewatch programme and other publicity, we have gathered a massive amount of information relating to Peter Tobin.

"This information is currently being assessed to gather further details on other crimes this serial killer may have been responsible for."

Police set up Operation Anagram after the rape and murder of Polish student Ms Kluk at a Glasgow church in 2006. They followed a trail to the garden of Tobin's former home in Margate, Kent, where they unearthed the bodies of Dinah and Vicky two years later.

IN DETAIL

• Video - Revealed: Killer Peter Tobin's horrific sex attack on Barrowland woman

Detectives are still piecing together information on his whereabouts over the years to establish whether he can be linked to or ruled out of other crimes. On a Crimewatch update on BBC1 last night, Mr Swindle said: "We've had a massive, unbelievable response.

"We've had information about Peter Tobin, what Peter Tobin may have done, information from potential victims, information about missing people and all sorts of things that we need to help find out the truth about what Tobin has done."

Asked whether there had been any information before the alleged attack in 1968, he said: "We've had some people phoning in - they may have been the victim of a similar attack. We are researching that as we speak. I would appeal again, 1978, that's the year we need to know where Peter Tobin was."

The woman who claimed she was attacked by Tobin in 1968 was not identified in the Crimewatch programme, in which she described how she met the man she believed was Tobin when he was 21.

She said he went under the name Jim McLaughlin, and that they went on a night out in Glasgow before she later blacked out. She said: "I'm sure he put something in my drink. I was all over the place. The next thing I remember, I woke up in this tenement building, a stair landing, and I was fighting for my life.

"I don't know how many times I went to phone the police and then I went, 'Oh, I wouldn't know what to say. Are they going to believe me?'"