The German "Bild am Sonntag" newspaper reported on Sunday that more than 2,300 suspected smugglers had been arrested in Germany since the beginning of the year - a 40-percent increase on the same period last year.

Citing information from the Interior Ministry, the paper said the majority of those detained over the crime came from Hungary, Romania, Syria, Bulgaria and Serbia.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the spike in arrests showed urgent action needed to be taken to "call the perpetrators to account and to put a stop to this vile exploitation."

"After the terrible suffocation of the people found in the refrigerated truck in Austria, it needs to be made clear to everyone that smugglers, in a ruthless way, put profit above human life," the minister told "Bild."

Last month, police in Austria discovered the bodies of 71 migrants inside an abandoned truck on the side of a highway south of Vienna. None of the victims has been identified, but it's believed they were Iraqi, Syrian and Afghan nationals. Five suspects accused of smuggling the migrants over the border from Hungary have been arrested.

Call for cooperation

An unprecedented number of refugees have attempted to make their way to Austria and Germany along the Western Balkans and through Hungary. According to police in the Bavarian town of Freyung, near Germany's southeastern border with Austria and the Czech Republic, up to 10 people are arrested every day for attempting to smuggle refugees into the country.

International police agency Interpol and its European equivalent, Europol, meanwhile issued a joint call this week for better information-sharing between European states to disrupt organized smuggling networks. The police groups also said they were planning an emergency summit of senior officers from source, transit and destination countries.

"Now more than ever we understand that security in the European Union is indivisible," Europol Director Rob Wainwright said in a statement. He added that police were grappling with sophisticated and agile smuggling syndicates who were becoming more innovative in their use of tools like social media.

nm/sms (AFP, Reuters, dpa)