In this paper, we consider the subchannel detection problem in forward links for the multicarrier DS-CDMA system when some different subchannel allocation policies are used. An optimal subchannel decision algorithm is proposed based on the maximum-likelihood (ML) criterion. Theoretical analysis and simulation results are presented. Furthermore, we discuss the parameter selection problem on the length of the training sequences in the subchannel allocation scheme in [8],[12] by using the proposed ML detection algorithm. The results show that the subchannel allocation scheme in [8],[12] is feasible since only a few symbols overhead is required.