(The Wall Street Journal) -- As the credit turmoil puts increasing pressure on European banks and financial markets, Europe's policy makers acknowledge they aren't equipped to deal with a global crisis.

Like their US counterparts, Europe's bank regulators were caught short as the sub-prime-mortgage crisis claimed victims on their home turf, in part because they didn't have a grip on events beyond their borders -- a serious flaw in a world where most big banks operate around the globe. Now, with mortgage losses mounting and the outlook for banks deteriorating, some are pushing to improve their early-warning systems and figure out how to coordinate in the event of a disaster, such as the failure of a large bank with multinational operations. It isn't clear how quickly they will come up with a plan, if at all.