Some European Parliament members are calling for the dismissal of the Polish deputy head of the parliament, Ryszard Czarnecki, after he made a very hostile comment about a Polish European lawmaker.

Czarnecki, from Poland's ruling conservative party, used a painfully derogatory term to comment on words spoken by Roza Thun und Hohenstein, a European lawmaker from Poland's main opposition party.

Thun has appeared in a film by German state NDR Television where she said that under the ruling party Poland was turning away from the European Union and was veering toward a "dictatorship."

Czarnecki reacted by comparing Thun to Poles who during World War II denounced other Poles and Jews to the occupying Germans.

The parliament head, Antonio Tajani, is to discuss the situation next week.