Germany says a United Nations Economic Council may be needed in future.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the World Economic Forum at Davos on Friday that a new charter should be forged - just as the Security Council was created after World War II.
She said cooperation amongst international financial institutions has failed to ward off the worst financial crisis in decades.
Her proposal expands on an earlier call by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to update the 1944 Bretton Woods structure that set up the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
