Five-year-old brain tumour patient Ashya King may leave hospital in Spain tonight for proton treatment in the Czech Republic.
The director of the Materno Infantil hospital in Malaga, Manuel Paz, told the BBC that Ashya was "ready to leave their care" and "may leave tonight".
However, he added that the boy's departure could be "delayed until the early hours of Monday morning".
A private plane was reported to be waiting at Malaga airport.
The timing of the proposed transfer came as a surprise as doctors in Prague are due to decide in the morning whether Ashya can travel there for the pioneering treatment.
If they opted to receive him following the meeting at the Motol Hospital tomorrow morning, they were expected to send a private medical jet to transport the boy from Spain.
The Proton Therapy Centre in Prague has said documentation from the hospital in Malaga will be reviewed before the child can travel.
Ashya hit the headlines after his parents Brett and Naghmeh King took him from Southampton General Hospital on August 28 without the permission of doctors.
They were arrested and held in custody in Spain after British police raised the alarm. They were released when prosecutors withdrew an arrest warrant in the wake of a public outcry.
The therapy centre's director of strategy, Iva Tatounova, has said no decisions will be taken before the meeting.
"Monday morning at 8 o'clock, in Motol Hospital, the best doctors and oncologic paediatricians will sit down to review this document, and therefore will be able to say, yes, he's capable of travelling to Prague," she told Sky News.
"We have to follow the standard procedures, which, if he comes on Monday night or Tuesday night or even Wednesday night, this doesn't make any harm to him, and the family can feel okay.
"Proton therapy will be part of his treatment. If he receives chemotherapy or not, this decision has to be made by Motol clinical oncologists, we don't do chemotherapy here."
Portsmouth City Council, which has responsibilities for Ashya's welfare, launched family court litigation - asking for directions about the youngster's treatment.
Mr Justice Baker began analysing issues surrounding Ashya's treatment at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court on Tuesday. The judge was told Mr and Mrs King wanted their son to receive proton beam radiotherapy.
The judge said in his order, released on Friday, that Ashya could be taken to the Czech Republic. He said he had been told specialists there had considered a treatment plan.
The hospital has said Ashya is in a stable condition, and that a flight to Prague would not pose a problem to his health.
Family lawyer Juan Isidro Fernandez Diaz told reporters the boy was "in perfect condition to travel", and was playing with toys and his parents and brother yesterday.
------The parents of a five-year-old brain tumour patient Ashya King have been given permission to take the youngster to Prague for treatment by a British high court judge, officials said.
Court officials said Mr Justice Baker had approved the move following telephone discussions with lawyers representing Brett and Naghmeh King and a hospital in Southampton, where Ashya was being treated.
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The case hit the headlines last week after the Kings left England with Ashya without doctors' permission and travelled to Spain.
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"There was a hearing this afternoon and the judge has said he is allowing Ashya to be flown to Prague," said Michael Duncan, a spokesman for the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary in London.
"The court's wardship over him will cease when he arrives at the hospital" in Prague, he added.
It was not immediately clear when Ashya would be flown to Prague to receive proton beam therapy.
The Proton Therapy Centre in the Czech capital has said it is ready to send a plane to transport him as soon as possible.
-----------The parents of Ashya King, who was taken out of hospital against medical advice, have been arrested after being found with their son in Spain.
*MADRID (AP) — A critically-ill 5-year-old boy driven to Spain by his parents against doctors' advice is receiving medical treatment for a brain tumor in a Spanish hospital as his parents await extradition to Britain, police said Sunday.
Officers received a phone call late Saturday from a hotel east of Malaga advising that a vehicle fitting the description circulated by police was on its premises.
Both parents were arrested and the boy, Ashya King, was taken to a hospital, a Spanish police spokesman said.
The boy's situation will depend on medical advice, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to be cited by name in the media.
Spanish National Police had published several tweets on its official account giving details of the King family and asking the public to call an emergency number with any information.
"The Kings are currently being held in custody and police have 72 hours to question them before handing them over to a judge, who will begin extradition proceedings," said Chris Shead, of Britain's Hampshire Constabulary.
Shead said the parents were arrested on suspicion of neglect. They were receiving advice from Britain's consular services in Spain and would likely also face questioning by British police who were due to arrive in Malaga on Sunday, he added.
An international search began Thursday for the boy, who has a severe brain tumor, after his parents removed him from a hospital in the southern English city of Southampton in the county of Hampshire.
A European arrest warrant was issued by Interpol, at the request of British police, for the boy's parents, Brett and Naghemeh, both Jehovah's Witnesses. There has been no indication that the parents raised any religious issue about the boy's treatment.
The family had been seen traveling from Britain to France aboard a car ferry and Spanish police had been alerted.
Spanish state television broadcaster TVE said on its website that the minors among the couple's five other children were being looked after by their adult brothers.
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Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.
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Police say officers in the Malaga area pulled over the family's car at 9pm UK time and found the five-year-old and his parents inside.
The boy from Portsmouth, who underwent "extensive surgery" during an operation on his brain tumour seven days ago, has been taken to hospital.
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead of Hampshire Constabulary said his parents, Brett King, 51, and Naghemeh King, 45, were in custody after being arrested on a European arrest warrant.
"We don't have many details on Ashya's condition at this point in time but what we do know is that he was showing no visible signs of distress," he said.
"There are no winners in this situation. I've said all along that this must be a terribly distressing time for Ashya's family and I stand by that now."
He added that it was too soon to say when Ashya would come back to the UK but said Southampton General Hospital had been contacted so they can liaise with doctors taking care of him in Spain.
"Ashya's brothers and sisters were not in the vehicle," he said.
"We have located them. They're all okay, they're fine. They are actually in a hotel about 10 miles away."
He said a team of Hampshire police officers would now be travelling to Spain to continue the investigation.
It came as footage emerged on video-sharing website YouTube in which Ashya's father, a Jehovah's Witness, insists they had taken him from hospital to seek a cancer treatment not available on the NHS.
"We were much disturbed today to find that his face is all over the internet and newspapers and we've been labelled as kidnappers, putting his life at risk, neglect," he says.
"There's been a lot of talk about this machine. As you see, it's all plugged in. We've got loads of these feeds here, we've got iron supplements and we've got Calpol.
"As you can see, there's nothing wrong with him. He's very happy actually, since we took him out of hospital. He's been smiling a lot more, he's been very much interacting with us.
"But I just wanted to say very quickly why we took him out of the hospital.
"The surgeon did a wonderful job on his head that took out the brain tumour, completely they reckon. But straight away afterwards he went into what's called posterior fossa syndrome, which means very limited moving or talking or doing anything."
He said he had spoken to specialists after Ashya's surgery and had requested proton beam treatment, which was not available on the NHS.
"Proton beam is so much better for children with brain cancer," he said.
"We pleaded with them for proton beam treatment. They looked at me straight in the face and said with his cancer - which is called medulloblastoma - it would have no benefit whatsoever.
"I went straight back to my room and looked it up and the American sites and French sites and Switzerland sites where they have proton beam said the opposite, it would be very beneficial for him."
Mr King also urged police to call off "this ridiculous chase".
"We're not neglecting our son, he's in perfectly good health," he said.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds but are open to other medical procedures.
