We call on the rest of the world - including offshore centres - to implement regulations requiring institutions to report suspicious assets

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown

The new measures will mean that a whole range of professionals - including accountants, estate agents and lawyers - will be required to report any "suspicious transactions" they come across.

Even casino owners and traders in precious stones would have to be on alert.

The plans to tighten the rules have been under discussion for more than two years, but have been given added urgency by the terrorist attacks.

EU members are trying to track down Bin Laden followers

They will have to be ratified by ministers and the European parliament before taking effect in some 18 months.

"We call on the rest of the world - including offshore centres - to implement regulations requiring institutions to report suspicious assets," said Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer.

"We should stand shoulder to shoulder to root out the financial lifeblood of terrorism."

The move comes as European ministers of finance, home affairs and justice hold a series of meetings in Luxembourg to discuss how their efforts to combat terrorism are taking shape.

As the war on terror finances is stepped up, ministers are also working on joint ways to:

• Share information on bank accounts believed to be held by criminals.
• Take punitive action against states which are not seen as adhering to international norms on combating money-laundering, with the Philippines and the tiny Pacific island of Nauru at the top of the list.
• Follow up the inquiries into whether the 11 September terrorists also profited from their crimes by investing in key shares before the attacks, and selling them afterwards.