PARIS — European countries have agreed to increase security checks in railway stations and on trains, and are calling for improved cooperation among intelligence services, France’s Interior Minister said after an emergency meeting of European officials in Paris.

The meeting was called after a group of passengers that included two off-duty United States servicemen helped thwart a gunman on a high-speed train that was carrying 554 people from Amsterdam to Paris on Aug 21.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, reading from a joint statement after the meeting on Saturday, said the countries had agreed to increase the number of ID and baggage checks in stations and on trains “when it is necessary”, and to use mixed-nationality police patrols on international lines more often. “Our goal is that different actors at the European level take concrete and ambitious safety and security measures,” Mr Cazeneuve said. He emphasised that the measures should guarantee an “efficient transborder transportation system”.

Officials around Europe are confronted with the difficult task of securing an international rail network of 100,000 trains used by 40 million passengers daily, without hampering its speed and efficiency at shuttling goods and people alike.

Mr Cazeneuve said European intelligence services needed to cooperate more closely, calling for “coordinated and simultaneous operations” on targeted trips and encouraging European police forces to share information on suspects in a common database used by European countries in the 26-nation Schengen Area, which allows free movement across borders.

Mr Cazeneuve also urged the European Commission to look into a “targeted modification” of Schengen Area border rules to enable permanent controls “where and only where it is necessary”.

The 25-year old Moroccan suspect behind the attempted train attack, Ayoub Khazzani, has been charged with attempted murder in connection with a terrorist act, and the French authorities have opened a formal investigation. AGENCIES