IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said individual states should intervene when necessary according to their own specific needs, but it was important that any intervention should be "massive."

"I think that thanks to the decisions that have just been taken, the peak of the crisis is perhaps behind us. That's what we'll see in coming days," Strauss-Kahn told French radio Europe 1.

He said the full extent of the losses caused by the crisis would not be known for some time. "The decisions that have been made over the past three days have the right elements to reassure," Strauss-Kahn said.

"The principles have to be the same everywhere ... and the implementation has to be on a country by country basis, according to local specificities in law, the history of the country and the structure of the banking industry," he said.

"Any intervention must be massive."

Strauss-Kahn said the IMF would quickly present a report drawing lessons from the crisis, adding that the Bretton Woods institution should be given a bigger role in monitoring the financial system.