Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The family of Emanuela Orlandi have long campaigned to find out what happened to her 
 
 Human remains found at a property in Rome owned by the Vatican could hold the clue to a 35-year-old mystery. 
 
 The bone fragments were found during construction work at the Vatican's embassy to Italy, near the city's famous Villa Borghese museum. 
 
 A Vatican statement said experts were trying to determine the age and sex of the remains, and the date of death. 
 
 Italian media have speculated they may be those of a teenage daughter of a Vatican employee who vanished in 1983. 
 
 The disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi has been widely linked either to organised crime or to an attempt to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. 
 
 Orlandi's brother Pietro, has campaigned for decades to find out what happened to her. He has accused the Vatican of remaining silent in the case. 
 
 But the remains could be those of Mirella Gregori, who disappeared in Rome 40 days before Orlandi and was also aged 15, media also report. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A mural in Rome commemorates missing girls Emanuela Orlandi (R) and Mirella Gregori 
 
 She answered the intercom at her family's apartment and told her parents it was a schoolfriend. She said she was going out to speak to him, and never returned. 
 
 Detectives say it is possible that the cases are connected. 
 
 "During restoration works in a space annexed to the Apostolic Nunciature of Italy... fragments of human bone were found," the Vatican said in a statement. 
 
 It said that as soon as the remains were found the Vatican's gendarmerie informed the Italian authorities, and the Holy See, and an investigation was launched. 
 
 The Vatican has said on several occasions that it has co-operated fully with police investigating the Orlandi case. ||||| (CNN) Human remains found at a property owned by the Vatican in Rome have raised hope that a 35-year-old mystery involving a teenage girl's disappearance could be nearing a resolution. 
 
 The Holy See said in a statement released Tuesday that fragments of human bone were found during restoration works on an annex next to the Vatican's diplomatic office in the Italian capital. 
 
 "The Vatican Gendarmerie promptly intervened on the spot, informing the superiors at the Holy See who immediately informed the Italian Authorities," it said online, adding that an investigation has been launched. 
 
 According to the statement, the chief prosecutor of Rome, Giuseppe Pignatone, said experts were trying to establish the age and sex of the remains, as well as the date of death. 
 
 Italian media have begun speculating whether the remains are connected to Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl who vanished without a trace after leaving her Vatican apartment for a music lesson in 1983. She was the daughter of a prominent employee of the Institute for the Works of Religion, which is widely known as the Vatican Bank. 
 
 Read More ||||| FILE - In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Emanuela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Peter's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Emanuela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Peter's square, at the Vatican. The Vatican says human bones were found during renovation work near its embassy... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Emanuela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Peter's square, at the Vatican. The Vatican says human bones were found during renovation work near its embassy... (Associated Press) FILE - In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Emanuela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Peter's... (Associated Press) 
 
 VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Tuesday that human bones were found during renovation work near its embassy to Italy, reviving talk about one of the Holy See's most enduring mysteries — the fate of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983. 
 
 In the latest twist in a case that has bedeviled investigators for 35 years, the Vatican said Rome's chief prosecutor had been called in and forensic investigators are working to determine the age and gender of the bones as well as the date of death. 
 
 The Vatican statement didn't mention the girl, Emanuela Orlandi, but Italian media immediately linked her unsolved disappearance to the discovery of the bones. The Vatican said merely that the bones were found during work near its Rome embassy in the upscale residential neighborhood of Parioli. 
 
 Orlandi disappeared after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See. 
 
 Over the years, her case has been linked to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II to the financial scandal of the Vatican bank and Rome's criminal underworld. 
 
 The last major twist in the case came in 2012, when forensic police exhumed the body of a reputed mobster from the crypt of a Roman basilica in hopes of finding Orlandi's remains as well. The search turned up no link. 
 
 More recently, a leading Italian investigative journalist caused a sensation when he published a five-page document last year that had been stolen from a locked Vatican cabinet that suggested the Holy See had been involved in Orlandi's disappearance. The Vatican immediately branded the document a fake, though it never explained what it was doing in the Vatican cabinet. 
 
 The document was purportedly written by a cardinal and listed supposed expenses used for Orlandi's upkeep after she disappeared. ||||| Discovery in Vatican property seen as potential breakthrough in case of teenagers who disappeared in 1983 
 
 The family of a teenager who went missing in Italy in 1983 has called on the Vatican to provide more details on the discovery of human remains in one of its properties in Rome. 
 
 Fragments of human bone were found during restoration work on the property next to the diplomatic office of the Holy See in Rome in what could be a breakthrough for police investigating one of Italy’s darkest mysteries. 
 
 Rome prosecutors link Vatican cleric to 29-year mystery of missing girl Read more 
 
 Italian media have speculated that the discovery could shed light on the fate of one or possibly two teenagers who went missing in the 1980s. 
 
 “We will ask Rome prosecutors and the Holy See how the bones were found and why their discovery has been linked to the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi or Mirella Gregori,” the Orlandis’ family lawyer, Laura Sgrò, told the media. 
 
 “The statement released by the Holy See provides hardly any information.” 
 
 Citing sources close to the investigation, the Italian news agency Ansa reported on Wednesday that the remains found during restoration work on the floor of the property could belong to two people. Initial tests on some of the bones found indicate they belonged to a woman, according to the agency. 
 
 Workers are reported to have found an almost complete skeleton in one area and bone fragments in another. 
 
 A police investigation was under way to establish the age and gender of the remains and date of death. Media reports said the remains were discovered on Monday. 
 
 “Above all we need to established the period [of death] before we jump to conclusions,” Greg Burke, the Vatican’s spokesperson, told the Guardian. “The [outcome of the investigation] isn’t anything that will be known in a few days, it will take some time.” 
 
 Detectives will be looking in particular at whether they are a DNA match for Orlandi or Gregori, both of whom were 15 when they went missing in Rome within the space of 40 days in 1983. 
 
 Italian mafia boss's tomb opened in search for missing girl Read more 
 
 Orlandi was the daughter of a member of the Vatican’s police and was last seen on 22 June 1983 when leaving a music class. 
 
 Theories have circulated that the then teenager was kidnapped by an organised crime gang to put pressure on Vatican officials to recover a loan. Another claim was that she was taken to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish man who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. 
 
 Orlandi’s brother, Pietro, has been leading a decades-long campaign to find out what happened to her and has accused the Vatican of silence and even complicity in the case. 
 
 The Vatican has said on several occasions that it has cooperated with Italian police over the case. 
 
 Pietro Orlandi organised a sit-in demonstration in June, accusing the Vatican of “raising the wall even higher”. 
 
 “A few days after Emanuela disappeared, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Morandini told my dad that the state was concerned about the incident and that it was suggested to plug the leak before it was too late. I think the decision to drop the investigation was a consequence of those words,” he said at the time. 
 
 Sgrò said the Orlandi family were waiting to understand the details of the discovery and would comment further after a DNA test. 
 
 “The family’s hope is that [the remains belong to Emanuela], for so long we have fought a battle to bring her home.” 
 
 Gregori disappeared 40 days before Orlandi. Her mother says Gregori answered the intercom at the family apartment before telling her parents it was a school friend and she was going out to speak to him. She never returned. Investigators have not ruled out that the cases could be connected. 
 
 “I don’t want to delude myself, I want to keep my feet on the ground but in my heart I hope the bones belong to Mirella so that we can put an end to this story and have a place to weep and take a flower to my sister,” Maria Antonietta Gregori, her sister, told the Italian press. 
 
 The four workers who discovered the remains will meet Rome’s chief prosecutor over the coming days. The bones were found as they carried out restoration works on the floor of what used to be the home of the building’s caretaker. 
 
 The property where the remains were discovered had been left to the Vatican in 1949 by a Jewish businessman who belonged to the Nazi party before the introduction of racial laws in Italy, and later converted to Catholicism, according to Italian media. 
 

– The discovery of human bones at a property next to the Vatican's embassy to Italy has renewed hope of solving a 35-year-old disappearance, which some claim involves the Vatican itself. Rome's chief prosecutor is working to identify the bones found during renovation work at the Vatican property in Rome's Parioli neighborhood, the Vatican said Tuesday. Italian media quickly inserted Emanuela Orlandi into the conversation, notes CNN: The 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican official vanished on June 22, 1983, after leaving a music lesson in Rome, reports the Guardian. In the years since, some have claimed she was kidnapped by the mafia to pressure the Vatican to recover a loan, or taken in an effort to free from prison the man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, per the BBC. Orlandi's brother has even suggested some Holy See complicity in the case. Just last year, an Italian journalist claimed a stolen Vatican document listed expenses for Orlandi's care after she disappeared, reports the AP, though the Vatican called the document a fake. Some also believe Orlandi's disappearance is linked to that of 15-year-old Mirella Gregori. Gregori vanished 40 days before Orlandi when she left her family's apartment to speak to a person who'd dialed the intercom, described as a school friend. "Above all we need to (establish) the period [of death] before we jump to conclusions," a Vatican rep tells the Guardian. Even so, a lawyer representing the family of Orlandi says they hope to finally "bring her home." Investigators last searched for the missing girl in a mob boss' jewel-encrusted tomb.