Charles Clarke has called for greater co-operation across the EU in the fight against terrorism.
Hosting a special meeting of European Union justice and home affairs ministers in response to the London terror attacks, the home secretary said intelligence agencies and police from the continent had made "material differences" to the London investigation.
The UK wants to see pan-European standards on the retention of telephone and email records put in place as a further tool in the war on terror.
Outlining a 12-point anti-terror plan Clarke said: "We have to deal with radicalisation and recruitment - that will be one of the central issues that the Commission is discussing this morning.
"From the UK example, we now learn in the last 24 hours that it's possible that the acts were committed by British-born people who had decided that that course of action was what they were following.
"That gives an extra impetus and importance to understanding how that all operates."
Civil liberties
Clarke, along with constitutional affairs minister Baroness Ashton, will also address the European parliament's committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (Libe).
The committee has criticised the British-backed plans for retaining mobile phone and email data.
"The Libe committee was established to protect the liberties of the European people," Clarke said.
"I argue that it is a fundamental civil liberty of people in Europe to be able to go to work on their transport system in the morning without being blown up or subjected to terrorist attack, or to conduct their lives without being at risk of serious and organised crime.
"The question of civil liberties has to be treated in a proportionate way."
Responsibility
Clarke also had a tough message for the MEPs.
"They have to face up to being elected parliamentarians, just as I have to face up to being an elected minister," he added.
"It's a different civil liberties question whether one would have CCTV or not, or whether one retains telecoms data, or whether you have biometrics on ID cards, to whether somebody is tortured in a country to which they are sent.
"These are different issues and they have to be dealt with proportionately.
"Unless we succeed, the Commission council and the parliament, in getting agreement on these things, the people of Europe will say that we, the EU, have let us down on these key areas."
Shock
Ahead of the talks Clarke also expressed his "shock" at the revelation that the suspected terrorists were suicide bombers and British-born.
"I think that is the clarion call to us, to us as politicians, as broadcasters, to faith leaders, to lawyers, to everybody, to say we have to fight for this society we have, rather than just coasting along and assuming it's all OK," the home secretary said.
"And that's what we have to do, to address the best way to do that, and that difficult balance all the time between civil liberties, as you rightly say, and security and hitting that balance right."
