A new report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says in 2003, the governments of Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain all introduced measures to process certain classes of asylum seekers in centres outside Europe.
It claims the initiatives were effectively modelled the Australian Government's so-called Pacific-Solution, which involves the transfer of asylum seekers to third countries in the Pacific, such as Nauru.
The report raises concerns that offshore centres place asylum seekers in a legal limbo, in which no state is prepared to take full responsibility for their wellbeing.
It states that such measures appear to coincide with a growing determination among affluent states to prevent illegal entry to their territory.