European Union leader Donald Tusk urged member states on Thursday to accept at least 100,000 refugees between them to ease the pressure on frontline countries from a growing migrant crisis.

"Accepting more refugees is an important gesture of real solidarity. Fair distribution of at least 100,000 refugees among the EU states is what in fact we need today," Tusk told a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

EU leaders have rejected mandatory quotas for redistributing refugees, agreeing only at a summit in July to the voluntary relocation of 32,000 from Syria and Eritrea, still short of a target of 40,000 set by the European Commission in May.