Europe is setting up an anti-piracy taskforce to help protect the lawless sea lanes off east Africa, where heavily armed Somali hijackers have overrun more than 30 ships this year and raked in at least $30 million in ransom.

At least 10 European Union countries have volunteered to contribute to the joint air and sea operation, which is expected to comprise three frigates, three surveillance vessels and a supply ship.

Britain has indicated its probable support for the taskforce, which could be in place within days to help combat pirates who have stepped up their hostile attacks 100 per cent in the last year.

"The aim is to go quickly," said Laurent Tesseire, a spokesman for the French Defence Ministry, which is organising the EU plan in partnership with Nato.

Carme Chacon, the Defence Minister of Spain, which already has a military plane in the area, said that it was vital to take coordinated action against the pirates, who have made Somalia's coastal waters of Somalia the most dangerous in the world.

“We cannot have a sea where pirates operate with impunity,” said Ms Chacon.

Germany has promised to contribute a warship to the new taskforce, and France already has a ship in the area. Lithuania, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Belgium and Sweden have also indicated their support after talks today among EU defence ministers in Deauville, France.

Des Browne, the British Defence Minister, said that it was essential to protect the EU's trade with the rest of the world, and the delivery of oil to the west.

“It’s not just inside the EU or on the borders of the European Union, it’s off the coast of Somalia and Kenya, it’s more broadly, it’s ensuring that oil that travels around this world travels around it securely,” he said.

The sea lanes southeast of the Suez Canal, running between Yemen and Somalia, are the main seagoing link between Europe to Asia - and critical to Gulf oil shipments.

There is already an international force in the region, based around a contingent from the US Navy's 5th Fleet. Global shipping groups say however that more must be done to stop the escalating piracy, or risk a repeat of the 1970s crisis when the Suez Canal was closed and shipping diverted round the Cape of Good Hope.

Somali pirates are now holding 13 vessels captive with more than 200 sailors. In the most dramatic recent incident, negotiations are still continuing over the release of the MV Faina, a Ukrainian tanker laden with 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, ammunition and heavy weapons which was seized by pirates on September 25 and is anchored off the central Somali coast.

A flotilla of US navy warships has surrounded the MV Faina to ensure that the pirates don’t unload any of the weapons, fearing that they could end up in the hands of terrorists.

The pirates have demanded a $20 million ransom for the cargo ship and its 21-man crew. Somali government officials yesterday gave the go ahead for foreign powers to use whatever force is necessary to free the ship.

Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the US 5th Fleet, hailed the EU taskforce plan as “a step in the right direction.” He said that the Navy had received reports of three failed attacks today in the Gulf of Aden.

Piracy in 2008 has more than doubled from the previous year, with over 60 attempted attacks or successful hijacks reported.

Risk Intelligence, a Danish intelligence company specializing in maritime security, said today that there was a dramatic increase in the number of seamen held by Somali pirates in September, with 374 people held captive after raids off the Horn of Africa last month, compared with 292 hostages in all of 2007.

Company manager Hans Tino Hansen says the Somali pirates make an average of $1 million per hijacked vessel and hold freighters for an average of five weeks before freeing them.

A separate report published today by Roger Middleton of Britain's Chatham House thinktank says that the estimated $30 million earned this year by pirates in ransom was already being used to fund Islamic insurgents, some of whom are on a US State Department list of terrorists, in their civil war with the shaky Somali government.

“The international community must be aware of the danger that Somali pirates could become agents of international terrorist networks,” Middleton warned. He admitted that there was no explicit evidence yet showing that ransoms had bought weapons outside Somalia.

In the past, the US military has launched air strikes against alleged terrorist operations inside Somalia, and is known to have secretly sent special forces into Somalia to go after militants linked to al-Qaeda.

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