The Chancellor of Austria has called for all migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe to be sent back to Turkey.

Chancellor Werner Faymann said border police should save everyone trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU, but then immediately deport them.

He added that Austria will extend its border controls if Turkey does not take back refugees picked on their way to Greece and returned.

Return policy: Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said border police should send all refugees and migrants trying to enter the EU back to Turkey as this is the only measure that would make enough of an impact

Faymann, the leader of Austria's Social Democratic Party, said in an interview that sending back migrants and refugees to Turkey is the only measure that would make a radical enough impact.

'Frontex [the EU's border agency] must pick up the people fleeing to Greece. We have to save all of them, but then these people should be sent directly to Turkey,' Social Democrat Faymann said.

The left-wing leader said this approach was 'the only totally effective measure to break the human trafficking' of migrants, The Local reports.

Austria is set to introduce a new border management system at Spielfeld, a key crossing point on its south-eastern border with Slovenia, which aims at speeding up applications and making the country less attractive to asylum seekers.

More such border management facilities on other routes may be needed if Turkey does not respond to his proposal, the chancellor was quoted as saying.

Faymann said Turkey must make a decision by February 18, when EU leaders meet for a summit.

Arrivals: Refugees and migrants such as this group, who arrived aboard the passenger ferry at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece, on Sunday, would be forced to return

It would not be a solution if Turkish border controls led to 10,000 refugees arriving at EU borders instead of 20,000, Faymann was quoted as saying in the interview.

'Then we must secure our borders even more,' Faymann said. 'To protect internal borders is a makeshift solution. But we have to be prepared.'

Faymann's comments comes just months after he fiercely criticised Hungary's managing of the refugee crisis, comparing their methods to the Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

During an interview in September, Faymann suggested that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's treatment of the refugees was similar to the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps.

'Sticking refugees in trains and sending them somewhere completely different to where they think they're going reminds us of the darkest chapter of our continent's history,' he said, making a thinly-veiled allusion to the way thousands of Hungarian Jews were transported to Auschwitz in 1944.

Austria, which has a population of 8.4 million and last year received 90,000 applications for asylum, has said that the number of refugees it will accept this year will be limited to 37,500.

Ankara and Brussels agreed to slow down the flow of migrants in a deal reached late November last year, but refugees continue to stream into Greece.

More than one million people arrived in Europe last year, fleeing war and failing states in the Middle East and Africa.

Harsh measure: Faymann said EU border police should save everyone trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Greece, but then immediately deport them back to Turkey

Earlier today, reports came of at least 11 people drowning when when their boat sank in the Aegean while they tried to cross from Turkey to Greece, local media said.

The migrants had set off from the district of Dikili in western port city of Izmir in an apparent bid to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, Dogan news agency said.

The Turkish coastguard rescued three migrants.

Turkey, which is hosting at least 2.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war, has become the main launchpad for migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty to Europe.

The deaths came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel has met Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu for more talks on reducing the influx of migrants to Europe.

Turkey, a key country on the migrant route to Europe, is central to Ms Merkel's diplomatic efforts to reduce the flow. Germany saw an unprecedented 1.1 million asylum seekers arrive last year, many of them fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In her weekly video message on Saturday, Ms Merkel said European Union countries agree that the bloc needs to protect its external borders better, and that is why she is seeking a solution with Turkey. She added that, if Europe wants to prevent smuggling, "we must be prepared to take in quotas of refugees legally and bear our part of the task".