Toyota to halt production at five European plants

Toyota said the five plants in Britain, Turkey, France and Poland would also operate at a reduced volume in May "in order to manage available parts supply".

"Even though most of our parts come from European suppliers, we are experiencing gaps in our supply chain due to the situation in Japan," Didier Leroy, President and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe said in a statement.

"By adjusting our production in Europe, we are adapting to the current situation whilst not completely interrupting our deliveries of vehicles to our customers."

The automaker has previously said it will suspend all output operations at most of its 14 North American factories for four to five weekdays later this month.

It also said Wednesday it would suspend operations in the Philippines from Monday through Wednesday next week due to a shortage of parts, with Ford Motors' operations there also affected.

Toyota last week said production at its factories in Japan would restart from 18 April until 27 April at 50 per cent of normal pace.

The production halts have hit the automaker at a time when it was recovering from a recall crisis that brought the quality of its vehicles into question.

Toyota was last week threatened with a downgrade of its long-term credit rating by Moody's, one month after Standard & Poor's cut its rating on the automaker.

Previously lauded for its safety, Toyota became mired in crisis when it recalled nearly nine million autos between late 2009 and February last year due to brake and accelerator defects alleged to have caused dozens of deaths.

The crisis dealt a huge blow to the firm's reputation, prompting predictions that it would lose market share as it tightened its recall policy to encompass around 16 million vehicles between late 2009 and January this year.

Toyota shares closed 1.38 per cent higher at 3,285 yen Wednesday, partly due to a weaker yen.