The European Union is looking at ways to help bolster Afghanistan's police force, as the strife-torn country struggles to rebuild in the grip of a Taliban-led insurgency, EU leaders said Friday.

"The EU will examine ways of strengthening its engagement, including by looking at opportunities and conditions for a potential civilian ... mission in the field of policing, with linkages to the wider rule of law," they said.

"Afghanistan is at a critical juncture," the leaders said, in conclusions from their two-day summit in Brussels. "The EU stands ready to intensify its efforts."

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters that a Union fact-finding mission had just returned from Afghanistan and that he and his team would examine its report "in the coming hours".

"We are talking about 100 people to train police but a number of member states are still wondering what real use another programme will be when the job is so big," an EU official said, on condition of anonymity.

Germany has come under increasing pressure to accelerate the rebuilding of Afghanistan's police force -- poorly trained and equipped, and plagued by corruption -- but Berlin maintains it is doing a good job.