A leading trade union has called for a Europe-wide inquiry into the loss of call centre jobs.

On Tuesday, the Amicus union argued that any EU-wide investigation should be further-reaching than that announced by trade secretary Patricia Hewitt last week.

It follows the announcement by Norwich Union that more than 2,000 jobs are to be moved to India.

"We are not asking for walls to be put up around Europe," said Amicus national officer David Fleming.

"We want to develop a strategy to deal with changing technology and to safeguard against offshore providers who are trying to put the fear of death into finance companies by telling them their share price will go into a tail spin unless they move offshore.

"The USA has already off-shored 200,000 finance sector jobs in the last 12 months and 8,500 have left the UK since October. This is a global issue and we need global solutions.

"Europe has a massive role to play in helping emerging economies and we applaud any company with a commitment to corporate social responsibility at home and abroad."