Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images Belgium calls on EU countries to join its passenger tracking system Belgium adopted a passenger tracking system for trains, buses and boats last week.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon renewed calls on his European colleagues Thursday to set up improved tracking for passengers traveling by bus, train and boat in the wake of the Berlin Christmas market attack.

The country's parliament approved a national Passenger Name Records scheme last week that requires operators to track who is traveling where and send it to a national database, but the government fears the system will fall short if only Belgian data is included.

"It is key that other countries participate," said Olivier Van Raemdonck, Jambon's spokesperson.

Jambon hopes to present plans to his counterparts from other European countries at the next EU Council of Ministers for home affairs.

Jambon has previously called for the extension of the EU's system for tracking airline passengers' movements, adopted in April, to cover land and sea-based transport.

Germany has so far been dismissive of the idea, and France and the Netherlands are lukewarm about it. Privacy advocates have been highly critical of the scheme, which pools data from anyone traveling, regardless of whether they have ever been linked to criminal investigations.

Terror investigations, like the one into the Berlin Christmas market attack, have shown Islamist terrorists travel frequently and often over land.

Anis Amri, the chief suspect of the Berlin attack who was killed last week near Milan, had been “highly mobile” since July 2015, living in Freiburg, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia. After the attack, he traveled to Italy via the Netherlands and France by bus and train, investigators believe.

The Belgian government hopes to include the movements of passengers traveling with international train companies such as Thalys, Eurostar or national train services offering cross-border journeys.

The Belgian government also announced it is boosting security at its main train stations of Brussels-Midi, Antwerp Central and Liège, L’ Echo reported Wednesday, including with X-ray scanning, metal detectors and additional cameras. The government is looking into using face-recognition scanners as well.

Those measures will cost an additional €13.5 million in 2017, on top of the €400 million already allocated to the fight against terror.

Cathy Buyck contributed to this article.