"I would like to see the EU rapidly developing the capacity to deploy experts, with rapid reaction teams in disaster relief, fire-fighting, emergency reconstruction, on standby," Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the Financial Times in an interview.

"We should do it as early as possible," she said, adding it "would be great" if the corps could be ready by 2007.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said there was a need for a humanitarian equivalent of the United Nations 'blue helmets' peacekeeping forces.

This European or international civil protection force, dubbed 'red helmets', would group and coordinate existing resources, he told Europe 1 radio.

"Firemen, technicians, doctors, vaccinators, mobile hospitals, in short all the means you need to deal with a humanitarian emergency, and these means would be used to working together, these people would be trained together," he said.

"It would consist of national or regional units ... which in case of emergency and depending on the nature of catastrophes, would set off together in Europe or outside of Europe."

A European Commission spokesman declined to comment on the proposals floated by Ferrero-Waldner, but said Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso would present the EU executive's ideas to an international aid conference in Jakarta on Thursday.

Ferrero-Waldner said the European Commission was likely to increase its aid for victims of the tsunami disaster by tens of millions of euros in the coming days, from the 23 million euros ($31.3 million) committed so far.