(ROME) - Italy's foreign minister called for tightened security at the borders of EU states, in an interview published Friday, as the new right-wing government pressed a tough line on illegal immigration.

Il Messaggero newspaper quoted Franco Frattini as calling for tougher checks at borders and digital fingerprinting of non-members of the so-called Schengen zone that allows passport-free travel between 24 European countries.

"A continuous inspection of (the EU's) exterior borders is necessary,"said Frattini, who was EU Justice Commissioner before Berlusconi appointed him to his cabinet this month.

"If we introduce digital fingerprinting and a database... everything will be much easier," he added. "Those who do not belong to the Schengen zone should have their fingerprints taken even if they are not Europeans."

Berlusconi's government is cracking down on immigration-linked crime, a campaign pledge that helped it win April polls after a series of violent crimes were blamed on Romanian immigrants, notably the Roma ethnic group, or gypsies.

Italian police arrested 268 foreigners -- including a high number of Romanians -- in the government's first week in office, the interior ministry said Thursday.

Romania is preparing to join the Schengen zone in 2011.

Assailants torched the homes of Roma in two camps outside Naples on Tuesday and Wednesday, following the attempted kidnapping of an Italian baby by a gypsy girl.

Italy's interior minister Roberto Maroni on Friday said the government would "act firmly" to prevent such attacks and would "guarantee security above else," in comments reported by the ANSA news agency.

"Our intention is to manage migration from inside and outside the European Union with order and strictness to guarantee peaceful cohabitation... for all people in Italy," he said.

Maroni's party, the anti-immigrant Northern League, has called for the Schengen zone to be suspended.

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