Erdogan wants help from his German friends

In a German newspaper interview published before he arrived, Mr Erdogan said he expected "special support" from Germany for Turkey's bid to join the union.

But Turkey has not been given a date for starting membership talks, amid concerns over its human rights record.

The issue of Turkish EU membership is a controversial one in Germany, says the BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin.

The German branch of the human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement marking this visit, in which it said torture and sexual abuse still occurred during police interrogations.

We expect from our friends in Europe an attitude that encourages us along this road Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Amnesty said it and other groups would put their concerns directly to Mr Erdogan during a meeting with him on Wednesday.

Last week, a German court ruled that a suspected Turkish extremist leader, Metin Kaplan, could not be deported to Ankara because of concern that he would not face a "fair trial" there, the AFP news agency reports.

Germany has Europe's largest Turkish minority with more than two million Turks living in its midst.

Mr Erdogan arrived in Berlin on Monday ahead of schedule to visit an audiovisual trade fair.

His trip formally gets under way on Tuesday when he meets Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.