British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on Wednesday for the International Monetary Fund to be rebuilt in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Brown said better international rules governing financial markets should be the next step for EU countries, the United States and others that have set out rescue plans to salvage banks and lenders.

"The IMF has got to be rebuilt as fit for purpose for the modern world. We need an early warning system for the world economy," he told reporters in Brussels ahead of an EU summit.

The British premier has long called for the Washington based IMF to become a watchdog for global markets to prevent future market crises.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have backed the calls for stronger international supervision. They will join other EU leaders for two days of talks starting today on restoring stability to banks and crisis-hit financial markets.

Brown said creating a new international financial architecture should be "an immediate task" to restore confidence in markets.

"We now have global financial markets but what we do not have is anything other than national and regional regulation and supervision," Brown said.

"If we are going to sort out global financial problems , we need better ways of doing this,” he added.

Founded in the aftermath of World War II, the 185-nation International Monetary Fund became the international economy's fire brigade in the 1990s, providing loans to countries in financial trouble from Thailand to Turkey, while requiring dire belt-tightening measures.