Süth told the Reuters news agency that the country's parliament may impose stricter sanctions on processors who fail to produce appropriate documentation regarding the origins of their poultry.

The comments come after the announcement earlier this week that Hungarian domestic poultry stocks are once again free of the deadly H5N1 virus, following an outbreak in January.

The government is keen to adopt the measures to increase pressure on the country's processors to meet food safety standards.

Any company found to contravene these requirements could as a result face a year long suspensions from operating, as well significant fines.

The new proposals follow criticism of British poultry processing giant Bernard Matthews for continuing to trade from its UK facility in Holton following a H5N1 outbreak at the site.

As required by the EU, Bernard Matthews imposed an EU-regulated protection zone around the site to prevent the disease from spreading further.

Despite the protection zone being put in place however, UK Public Health Minister Caroline Flint revealed last week that 900 tonnes of poultry meat had still passed through the site.

She added that 93 tonnes of this meat came from Hungary, linked through genetic testing as the source of the original infection at the Bernard Matthews farm.

Bernard Matthews handled the suspect meat from 2 February, when the outbreak of the H5N1 virus was confirmed at the premises, and 12 February, when regulators said the disinfection process had been completed.

However Flint stressed that there had been no danger of the outbreak spreading.

"All this meat was from birds slaughtered prior to 2 February and none of it came from birds from the infected premises," she said in Parliament.

Meanwhile the Food Standards Agency (FSA) claimed that none of the meat went near the sheds where sick birds were found and that properly cooked poultry meat remains safe to eat.