Berlin, which this week hit out at Britain for not taking a quota of those arriving, has admitted it has also had enough. Around 150 migrants an hour, mostly said to be from Syria, are reaching Germany each hour causing it to impose checks on its border with Austria. Stephan Mayer, a senior member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, who led calls for David Cameron to act, said the escalating issues "directly erodes and endangers Schengen".

As European countries engaged in bitter exchanges last night over how best to resolve the crisis, the EU’s treasured Schengen Agreement of free movement across most of the continent - but which the UK has refused to join - was beginning to crumble. But it is now clear that many European member states are now blaming the EU’s Schengen Agreement for the scale of the crisis now overwhelming several of them.

Last night Tory MP Peter Bone, the former chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, laid the blame firmly at Brussels’ door. He said: “The EU has undoubtedly contributed to this crisis. Years ago we warned that the EU’s freedom of movement rules allowed traffickers to move people across Europe unimpeded. But because Brussels was so wedded to the idea of freedom of movement it would do nothing about it. The only way to combat this crisis is to reinstate border controls. The Schengen system of passport-free borders means traffickers are driving people across the Continent to reach the countries of their choice.”