LONDON  When Eastwind Maritime, a medium-size carrier company, went bankrupt this summer, few banks in the United States took notice.

But in Europe, where banks hold over $350 billion of increasingly dubious shipping industry loans, the inability of Eastwind, which is based in New York,to handle its debt of more than $300 million set off an anxiety attack on lending desks across the Continent.

The collapse of Eastwind Maritime, analysts say, while small, could well be a harbinger of more carrier failures to come.

And for Europe’s struggling banks, already plagued by a toothless economic recovery and continuing losses in real estate, the emergence of yet another questionable category of loans adds to fears that many of them are lagging their counterparts in the United States in overcoming the financial crisis.