Europe's authorities must take urgent steps to stamp out forgery of euro notes, particularly if the euro is to gain in international standing, the chair of a key European Parliament committee said yesterday.

Ms Christa Randzio-Plath said parliament's influential Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee would take up the matter with European Central Bank president Mr Wim Duisenberg when he appeared before the committee on September 10th.

"It beggars belief that the counterfeiters have managed to replicate euro notes so quickly and efficiently, given the supposedly fake-proof security features that we were told had been embedded in the design of our euro notes," she said.

"If the euro is to become a truly reputed international currency, the question of counterfeiting has to be seriously tackled through co-ordinated action by all European institutions - the European Parliament will monitor this issue with great attention in the months to come," she added.

The EU's law enforcement agency Europol said last month European police had seized more than €16 million in fake euro notes and shut down 15 counterfeiting operations.

While the haul represented a tiny proportion of the more than eight billion euro notes in circulation, Europol warned holidaymakers in Europe to watch what they had in their wallets.

Ms Randzio-Plath called on Europol to monitor counterfeiting rings in eastern Europe.