Brussels has urged European Union member states to take a unified approach in helping the airline industry recover from the consequences of the September 11 terrorist attacks avoiding "distortionary" effects on the single market.

But early signs were that member states will pursue different approaches.

At a finance ministers meeting at Liège, Belgium, at the weekend, EU countries agreed governments should be allowed to help provide airlines with third party war and terrorism insurance for a stop-gap period of one month. Insurance companies had greatly reduced the cover they were willing to provide in the light of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Commission said it would need to be notified of such schemes to ensure they did not give airlines from some countries an unfair advantage over others. But it would not ask to be informed of such schemes before they were put into operation. Previously airlines had said the insurance problem could force them to ground aircraft as of midnight last night.

In the US, airlines have been granted $5bn of direct aid and $10bn of indirect support.

"We are not going to ground planes," said a Commission spokesman. "Bureaucrats are not going to say that passengers can't fly because we need to look at these agreements." He added that Brussels would need to be notified urgently.

On Monday night, however, the Commission was unsure how long the notification process would take or what plans member states were working on.

The UK, so far the only country to notify Brussels, is underwriting the third party insurance provided by commercial insurers so that it would make up any shortfall in compensation. Germany and the Netherlands are working on similar ideas.

But in Belgium, where the state-controlled carrier Sabena is one of Europe's weakest airlines, the state would directly provide such third party insurance. The country may have to show that such a system will not lead to Belgian airlines being charged lower premiums than their competitors elsewhere.

Brussels is also concerned that the new insurance systems may ultimately last more than a month.

In addition, the EU is setting up a working party with the industry to look at possible compensation for the industry, to report by an October 15 meeting of transport ministers. But Brussels has made clear it does not want to provide direct financial aid.