Image copyright PA Image caption Ms Cooper says Greece, Italy and other points of entry need more support

Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper has said Britain should take in at least 10,000 more refugees from conflicts in Syria and other countries.

Every city should be asked to accept families and she urged a meeting with local authorities to decide how many extra places could be offered.

She added: "It is time for a national mission on this. It requires all of us to change our attitudes."

Germany's Angela Merkel has urged fair distribution of refugees across Europe.

The European Union is facing an unprecedented humanitarian challenge from the four-year civil war in Syria, and the situation in Iraq and Libya, as well as other conflicts in Africa.

Record numbers of people have been trying to make it across the Mediterranean to Europe in recent months, resulting in chaotic scenes in a number of countries and the deaths of thousands of people.

The UK has committed to accept 500 refugees from Syria, far fewer than many other EU member states, in the past four years although it is the largest provider of humanitarian aid to Syria itself, contributing £800m so far.

'Scared of politics'

But Ms Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said this was "just not good enough" and out of kilter with the country's "historic tradition" of providing sanctuary to those fleeing conflict zones and persecution.

She suggested those making their way to Europe were escaping a "new totalitarianism" and the government's response showed it had been "paralysed" by the politics of immigration and had allowed asylum and immigration policies to become conflated.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Police have reopened Budapest's main railway station but barred entry to migrants

Speaking in London, she said: "If every city took 10 refugee families, if every London borough took 10 families, if every county council took 10 families, if Scotland, Wales and every English region played their part, then in a month we'd have nearly 10,000 more places for vulnerable refugees fleeing danger, seeking safety."

She added: "It is time for a national mission on this. It requires all of us to change our attitudes. To stop being so scared of the politics of immigration we fail to help refugees."

Europe, she told the BBC Radio 4's World at One, was facing "the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War Two". "We cannot turn our backs... I know this will be controversial but I think it is the right thing to do."

'Workable'

Speaking during a leadership hustings broadcast by Channel 4 and You Tube, fellow leadership contender Liz Kendall said she backed Ms Cooper's "workable" plan, saying the UK could take "thousands more".

Andy Burnham said those countries "able to take more should do so", and the UK had been found "completing wanting" on the issue.

And Jeremy Corbyn said recent events in Hungary and Austria showed the scale of the crisis facing Europe and called on the UK to reverse its position and sign up to the United Nations quota-based refugee scheme.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who was the first party leader to call for the UK to take refugees from Syria, said more could be done to help those displaced by conflict, calling for a "few thousand" Syrians to be given refuge.

But he said the EU's "open door" asylum policy was acting as a magnet to economic migrants and the EU had "lost sight" of who were genuine asylum seekers and who were not.

"We have an open legal door now to half a billion people," he told the BBC. "We have a hundred thousand people a month coming in. I think the EU has got this hopelessly wrong".