WASHINGTON — European leaders are looking outside the Continent for help solving the longstanding crisis over the euro, but while the International Monetary Fund may be able to help, it will not be the magic wand they seek.

The fund may be asked to assist further as leaders of the 17 European Union nations that use the euro meet to prepare for a summit meeting on Thursday and Friday. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France are scheduled to hold talks in Paris on Monday, and, at the request of President Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is meeting with European leaders later in the week.

European Union leaders have already turned to the I.M.F. to assist smaller nations like Ireland, Greece and Portugal. In all three, the fund is providing about a third of the necessary loans and its expertise in guiding countries with solvency problems back to recovery. Last month, at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Cannes, the fund was also asked to monitor the economic, fiscal and structural reforms in huge and shaky Italy — not as a lender, at least not yet, but rather to lend its skills and credibility to the efforts of the new prime minister, Mario Monti, a technocrat.

The I.M.F. lacks the resources to create the much-discussed “firewall” to keep interest rates at sustainable levels for troubled euro zone economies. Italy and Spain together have total debts of more than $3.3 trillion, with Italy about to roll over $276 billion in debt over in the next six months and Spain about $150 billion. Just those two rollovers would wipe out the amount the fund has available to lend worldwide, about $400 billion.