Hundreds of migrants have protested for a second day at Hungary’s decision to prevent them from travelling on towards Germany and other EU countries.
They are among 2,000 people camped at Budapest’s Keleti train station, having bought tickets for onward journeys.
Meanwhile, more than 4,000 migrants arrived in mainland Greece from the island of Lesbos overnight.
The EU is struggling to agree a common policy across member states for dealing with the crisis.
The European Commission, the executive of the EU, is trying to draw up a list of safe countries of origin that failed asylum applicants can be sent back to.
An EC spokeswoman said it was preparing proposals for a mechanism to automatically redistribute a proportion of those seeking asylum among EU states.
Italy and Greece have complained that they are overwhelmed by the numbers arriving on their shores.
About 2,000 migrants camped overnight at Keleti station in east Budapest, having been prevented from boarding trains on Tuesday.
They had bought tickets after Hungary appeared to abandon efforts on Monday to register migrants, allowing huge numbers to board trains to Vienna and southern Germany.
Hungary gave little detail on its apparent U-turn, except to say it was trying to fulfil its obligations as an EU member to uphold border controls.
Hundreds of migrants again protested on Wednesday, chanting “Freedom, freedom” and waving train tickets, complaining they had paid hundreds of euros for the onward journeys.
Journalists at the scene said tensions were high with migrants involved in a stand-off with riot police.
A confrontation also broke out an another railway station in Budapest where a group of migrants occupied a platform after refusing to board a train sending them to a reception centre in the eastern city of Debrecen.
Police quoted by Hungarian TV said the “illegal immigrants” held their children aloft and demanded they be allowed to proceed freely to Germany.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban is due to meet EU chiefs on Thursday to discuss Hungary’s handling of the crisis.
Under an EU rule known as the Dublin Regulation, refugees should seek asylum in the first EU country they enter.
But this has proved hard to uphold with border countries such as Hungary, Italy and Greece saying they cannot cope with the numbers.
The German government has already said it will allow Syrians arriving from other EU states to apply for asylum. But on Tuesday, a spokesman said the Dublin Regulation had not been suspended.
“Dublin rules are still valid and we expect European member states to stick to them,” an interior ministry spokesman said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for asylum seekers to be distributed more equally across the EU.
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