Greece is angry over being excluded from a meeting with Balkan states over the issue.
It comes as European Union ministers are warned they have only weeks to stem the refugee flow or risk a complete breakdown of the system.
Europe's bottleneck of fleeing migrants and refugees is nowhere more pronounced than on Greece's border with Macedonia.
That is where Syrian refugee Mohammed Darda and hundreds of others face an increasing number of roadblocks on their journey to Western Europe.
"We are staying in the camp for three days, and they don't let us to go to the border with Macedonia. And we have no money, and we are tired, and we are walking, like the (other) people."
Further south at the Greek port of Piraeus, buses have also stopped picking up newly arrived migrants from across the Mediterranean Sea.
A young mother named Huda says she fears she will lose her five year-old autistic son among the packed crowds in the passenger terminal.
"We got no place to sit even, and we have kids, and we got nothing with us, so I don't know what our destiny is going to be, where we are going to be moved. Some people say a lot of things, make us worried, and ... like, the border is closing, and I don't know, I don't know. A lot of things make us more and more and more tired. And we only need these things to be solved and to know what should we do. We can't, like, only sleep in the streets, and we don't know what to do."
Macedonia has suspended all transport of migrants through the country after transit camps on its northern border filled up with mostly Afghan migrants denied entry into Serbia.
There, a woman named Katherine Pearson has joined a team of volunteers trying to help the stranded.
"So these people have been here for three days, and they need all sorts of things, like hats, gloves, shoes, but other things that you wouldn't even think, like underwear, or sanitary products or nappies for babies. So we try and hand them out. We go on the buses and hand them out to the new families who come here. And they're really grateful, even just for playing with people."
EU ministers have met amid dire warnings the Union is heading towards anarchy over the humanitarian crisis.
European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos has told the conference that member states have until a summit with Turkey in a fortnight to curb the numbers arriving.
Otherwise, he says, they will face a breakdown of the EU bloc.
Mr Avramopoulos says the situation along the Western Balkans is critical.
"The possibility of a humanitarian crisis of large scale is there, is very real and very near. We have a shared responsibility -- all of us -- towards our neighbouring states, both EU and non-EU, but also towards those desperate people."
The gathering in Brussels comesh at a diplomatically sensitive time for British Home Secretary Theresa May.
Britain is heading to the polls within months to decide whether to stay in the Union.
"Well, Europe is, indeed, dealing with a migration crisis, and that would be the same whether the United Kingdom was in the European Union or outside of the European Union. As members of the EU, we are able to work with others to strengthen Europe's external borders."
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says the chaotic management of refugees and migrants must be fixed.
"We disagree with unilateral measures. We've said it many times. But I heard today in the council many people, many other countries, also disagreeing with this disorderly approach. It creates chaos, and, in that way, we cannot address some of the real protection needs of the refugees."
But agreement on how to manage the crisis is proving a challenge.
Hungary's plan to hold a referendum on the transfer of asylum seekers between EU states has the European Commission puzzled.
Spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud is seeking clarification from Hungary on Prime Minister Victor Orban's proposal to put plans for mandatory migrant quotas to the Hungarian people.
"We, however, fail to understand how it would fit into the decision-making process which was agreed to by all member states, including Hungary, under the EU treaties. But, of course, it appears that the domestic debate on this issue is ongoing and not yet concluded, so we will wait for clarifications to be provided in this context."
Hungary claims the decison to redistribute 160,000 migrants among the EU over the next two years contradicts Union rules.
It will join Slovakia in challenging the quota plan in the European Court of Justice.
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