The report follows Libya's surprise agreement on Friday to dismantle its weapons arsenal and give up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

The plan, according to The Guardian, is for a joint initiative by Britain, France and Germany and is modelled on a similar tripartite effort which persuaded Iran to accept nuclear inspections.

London and Berlin have already demanded that Damascus make stronger commitments to abide by international laws on illegal weapons as the price for a closer relationship with the European Union.

The most obvious goal, The Guardian said, would be to persuade Syria, facing the threat of UN sanctions, to sign up to the chemical weapons convention.

If agreed, the newspaper said, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his German and French counterparts would visit Damascus together, mirroring their joint mission to Tehran in October.

Meanwhile, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi told CNN late Monday that his government had taken "corrective" action in renouncing weapons of mass destruction and that nations such as North Korea, Iran and Syria, suspected of having nuclear arms, should follow its lead.

"In my opinion I should believe that they should follow the steps of Libya, take an example from Libya, so that they prevent any tragedy being inflicted upon their own people," Gaddafi said in an exclusive interview with CNN.

Gaddafi reasoned that such a step would "tighten the noose around the Israelis, so they would expose their programs of" weapons of mass destruction.

Libya on Friday took the world by surprise admitting after years of denial that it had weapons of mass destruction and vowing to renounce them.

Gaddafi, however, told CNN that Libya did not possess nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

"We have not these weapons," he told CNN's Andrea Koppel during his interview in a tent a half an hour's drive outside the Libyan capital Tripoli.

The programs to be dismantled, Gaddafi said, "would have been for peaceful purposes -- but nevertheless we decided to get rid of them completely."