'Islam will be the death of Europe' chanted protesters at a rally in Warsaw, with the pre-dominantly Roman Catholic crowd reaching as many as 5,000 people.

Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Prague and in the Slovak capital Bratislava, some holding banners reading: 'You're not welcome here so go home'.

The vast demonstration in Bratislava comes as the country's interior minister Robert Kalinak confirmed that Slovakia will veto any decision on mandatory quotas.

Mr Kalinak is expected to join ministers from the other 27 member states at an emergency meeting on Wednesday in order to discuss the refugee crisis.

'I have the government's and the parliament's mandate to veto any questions concerning the quotas because they don't make any sense, they are directly pointed against the refugees and don't solve the crisis in any way,' the Slovakian interior minister said.

Hungary has seen some 180,000 people entering illegally this year and has passed a raft of tough new laws that will take effect on Tuesday, meaning anyone crossing the border illegally can be deported or even jailed.

'These people are not fleeing danger and don't need to be scared for their lives,' hardline Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Germany's Bild daily. 

These migrants are not coming our way from war zones but from camps in Syria's neighbours, he claimed. 

The International Organization for Migration said on Friday that more than 430,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with 2,748 dying en route or going missing. 

The Hungarian Prime Minister criticised Merkel's decision to relax asylum laws, saying it had caused 'chaos' and accused European leaders of 'living in a dream world'.

He dismissed the ideas of quotas as being an 'illusion.' 

'The influx is endless: from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria. If they are all going to come here, then Europe is going to go under.'

Austria's chancellor slammed its neighbour, comparing Orban's treatment of migrants to Nazi-era cruelty.

'Piling refugees on trains in the hopes that they go far far away brings back memories of the darkest period of our continent,' Werner Faymann told German weekly Der Spiegel. 

The comments come after reports emerged suggesting that several anti-migrant demonstrators punched a pedestrian, in what is thought to have been a racist attack, in the Polish capital yesterday.

Security guards managed to intervene, pulling the protesters away from the injured man. 

Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek said the march was 'calm and without any incidents.'

(dailymail.co.uk)