Europe's response to the terror attacks in America is "firing on all cylinders" but is being ignored by the British media according to a former Labour leader.

Neil Kinnock, vice-president of the European commission, believes that the EU is doing its bit in response to the terror attacks of September 11, but its contribution is barely covered by the UK press.

"It has been ignored in the British media but that's because they're not very good at recognising Europe as a reality," he told ePolitix.com at Labour's Brighton conference.

"Last week, for instance, Chris Patten and Javier Solana with Belgium's foreign minister - EU presidents in office - Louis Michel covered six different countries in the course of five days establishing contact, developing relationships, making the case for a very, very close coalition against terrorism," he said.

Kinnock said Brussels was already developing exactly the joined-up response called for by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

"On all fronts; the war against drugs, the war against terrorism, the efforts to save lives from the natural disaster of drought and the disasters of an oppressive government we are firing on all cylinders," he said.

Arrest and extradition laws were one area of legislation that the EU was already revising, he said.

"Totally by coincidence the Council received for its first reading the EU's proposals for a common arrest warrant to be use against terrorists, a definition of terrorism for the purpose of identifying, pursuing and apprehending terrorists."

Kinnock said the EU was in any case playing a major role to help prevent a humanitarian disaster unfolding in Afghanistan.

"We have announced a very large humanitarian aid package in order to add to the commitment we have already made over a period of a couple of years in order to assist those desperate victims of the famine in Afghanistan," he said.

Kinnock welcomed comments from some UK political figures, particularly Charles Kennedy, that isolationism by both the US and eurosceptics is no longer an option in the new era of global terrorism.

"There is nothing, nothing good to come out of the murder of 6000 people but I suppose in many ways there has been a recognition of the reality of interdependence in the world and therefore the need for coalition, co-operation, coordinated activity of all kinds - economic and political - not just against terrorism but for prosperity, for liberty. I suppose its made all those very rudimentary messages and realities more emphatic," he said.

Kinnock said the values of unity and co-operation should not have needed to be brought up the political agenda by a massive human tragedy.

"Anybody who is a citizen and a thinking citizen, let alone a political leader, shouldn't have needed any lessons to be taught because all those things are self-evident. We should have been working on that agenda for decades," he said.