A local man helps a Syrian refugee who jumped off board from a dinghy as he swims exhausted at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos September 17, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

"We never thought it would reach this level. We just hope people are treated with dignity."

The record movement of people into Europe is a symptom of a record level of disruption around the globe, with numbers of refugees and internally displaced people far surpassing 60 million, UNHCR said last week.

Swing said the war in Syria was only one among many causes, including Ebola and Boko Haram in West Africa, an earthquake in Nepal, conflicts in Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Afghanistan and Iraq.

"No wonder you have such a large flux coming north. This is an unprecedented scale of simultaneous complex protracted disasters from the western bulge of Africa to the Himalayas, with very few stable, peaceful spots in between."

UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres called on Friday for a "massive resettlement" of Syrian and other refugees within Europe, to distribute many hundreds of thousands of people before the continent's asylum system crumbles.