European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has shot down a proposal for a "special summit" on illegal immigration but promised Malta and Italy would receive a "strong response" to their call for help.

Mr Barroso yesterday made it clear he disagreed with the idea of a special EU summit to discuss the issue, as proposed by Italy last week and supported by Malta.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had proposed that the EU hold a summit in the coming days in a bid to resolve the illegal immigration issue. His Maltese counterpart, Tonio Borg, seconded the idea and even offered to host the summit. However, EU sources told The Times the idea did not go down well and many member states were opposing it.

It was not even sure whether the illegal immigration issue would be on the agenda of the next EU meeting for heads of state and government, scheduled to take place in Brussels next month.

During a meeting of EU Foreign Affairs Ministers on Monday, several countries, including Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Romania, Greece, Malta, Finland and France, called for illegal immigration, particularly in the Mediterranean, to be added to the agenda.

However, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohouts, representing the Presidency, told journalists after Monday's meeting that it was "not certain that the Presidency will look upon this request with favour as the matter has already been discussed several times in summits and repetition has to be avoided".

In an interview with Italy's daily newspaper Corriere della Sera before his visit to Rome today, Mr Barroso said the EU was planning to assist Italy, Malta and other member states to grapple with a surge of immigrant arrivals.

"We know how serious and extremely difficult the situation is, especially for some countries such as Italy or Malta," he said, adding that the EU planned a "strong response".

Mr Barroso said that, together with EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot, he was working on a "series of new proposals" to be presented by June 10.

Without revealing any details, Mr Barroso said the main three objectives were preventing the tragedies at sea that saw migrants drown in their attempt to reach Europe; safeguarding the principle of free movement of people and defending the right to asylum.

At the same time, Mr Barroso said the EU could not be a fortress that tried to keep immigrants out: "Europe needs immigration but it needs to manage it better."