The European Commission has said it does not expect economic growth in the euro zone to be "seriously and sustainably" harmed by economic problems in the US.

European Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger made the statement yesterday after economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia briefed fellow commissioners on the crisis in the US subprime mortgage market. Internal markets commissioner Charlie McCreevy, who did not attend the meeting, also circulated a briefing note on the crisis and announced plans to meet European security regulators to discuss possible changes to EU financial regulation.

The note repeats Mr McCreevy's criticism of the role played by credit rating agencies in the current financial crisis and concludes that regulatory action may be required.

"Although there were a number of factors behind the subprime crisis, including misselling and fraud, one of the reasons I believe that led to the rapid market decline in confidence in mortgaged backed securities in the past few weeks stemmed from the doubts about the accuracy of ratings given to these instruments," he said.

He said he believed that ratings agencies such as Moodys and Standard & Poor's had been too slow to revise downwards their opinions or at the very least to place their opinions on "credit watch". Mr McCreevy said this segment of the market would not have grown so much without the involvement of the credit agencies and their ratings.