The European Commission on Friday launched a scheme to monitor and in some cases reject exports of vaccines produced in EU plants -- amid a row with British-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca.

"We paid these companies to increase production and now we expect them to deliver," EU Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters.

"Today's measure has been adopted with the utmost urgency. The aim is to provide us immediately with full transparency... And if needed, it also will provide us with a tool to ensure vaccine deliveries."

EU officials said they expected the order to come into effect on Saturday after its publication in the official journal. 

The measure will require any vaccine exports out of the EU to be subject to authorisation by a member state. 

It is intended to continue until the end of March, and applies only to those coronavirus vaccines that are covered by advance purchase agreements between drug companies and the European Commission. 

Brussels has been in a furious dispute with AstraZeneca this week, accusing it of breaching its contract by delaying deliveries to EU governments while maintaining those under a deal it signed earlier with the UK.

But Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides insisted: "We are not protecting ourselves against any specific country. And we're not in competition or in a race against any country."

Nevertheless, Dombrovskis said companies declaring new exports would also have to provide information "on their exports and export destinations, quantities and so on, for the period covering three months prior to entering into force of this regulation".

This would presumably reveal whether or not AstraZeneca did indeed -- as has been alleged -- send vaccines to Britain from one of its two vaccine plants in Europe, which is says have been hit by production glitches.