EU nations must accept up to 200,000 refugees as part of a “common strategy” to replace their “piecemeal” approach to the migrant crisis, the UN says.
Antonio Guterres, head of the UN refugee agency, said the EU must mobilise “full force” for the crisis, calling it a “defining moment”.
EU leaders, split over sharing the refugee burden, are scrambling to agree a response in meetings on Friday.
In Hungary, hundreds of refugees are locked in a stalemate with authorities.
Migrants hoping to reach the Austrian border have refused to disembark from a train surrounded by police in the Hungarian town of Bicske, 40km (25 miles) from Budapest.
Hungarian authorities want to move the migrants to a nearby refugee camp – but the migrants fear registering there will hamper their plans to seek asylum in Germany and other countries.
In the Hungarian capital, Budapest, hundreds of stranded refugees have vowed to “walk to Vienna” because they have not been allowed to board trains onwards.
Meanwhile, a Syrian Kurdish child who was drowned while attempting to reach Greece has been buried in his hometown of Kobane on Friday.
The family of Alan Kurdi crossed the border from Turkey to Syria, carrying coffins bearing his body and those of family members who died with him.
Images of the toddler’s limp body, washed ashore on a Turkish beach, have been widely circulated, heightening outrage over the migrant crisis.
As the crisis mounts, the EU is facing intense pressure to adopt a cohesive policy towards the migrant flows – the largest Europe has seen since World War Two.
Mr Guterres, of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), criticised the bloc’s “unbalanced and dysfunctional” system that he said had only benefited people smugglers.
He urged the EU to admit up to 200,000 refugees as part of “a mass relocation programme” that had the “mandatory participation” of all member states.
