While the group pledged in a statement to “enhance international cooperation,” it affirmed that the countries were free to go their own way in responding to the crisis. “None of the other six G-7 members will adopt a similar program to the U.S.,” the German finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, said.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, criticized the United States and Britain for opposing German attempts to put greater regulation, or at least reviews, of the financial sector on the international agenda last year, when she was leading the Group of 7.

“Everyone who produces a real product knows what it looks like and what standards it is up to,” Mrs. Merkel said, while traveling in Austria. “One also needs to know with a financial product what’s involved. Otherwise, these sorts of things happen that we then all have to pay for.”

In fact, Germany and Britain have already bailed out some banks that got into trouble because of deteriorating mortgage-related loans, though on a scale much smaller than the proposed American plan.

British officials made clear that they would not create a government fund to buy bad assets, although Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer, did promise new rules.

“We are putting in place both here in the U.K. and internationally the tougher financial regulation no one can doubt we need,” Mr. Darling told the governing Labor Party’s annual conference in Manchester. “I will continue to do whatever it takes to maintain financial stability.”

Some economists said Europeans would be forced to take more sweeping action. “Germany has more toxic exposure than any other country,” said Adam S. Posen, the deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “The only one that may stay out of this is France.”