With piracy in Somalia officially "out of control", the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has launched an appeal to help stop the growing menace, after an oil-laden Saudi super-tanker became the biggest prize to be seized.

More than a dozen vessels are being held in Somali waters by pirates who are no longer satisfied with preying on small boats or even the UN food aid shipments destined for around two million hungry Somalis.

"The tempo at which this piracy has developed has been a bit of a surprise to everyone," said Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, chairman of NATO's military committee.

The top US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, has also been "stunned" by the reach of the pirates, who are "very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good."

In the face of their audacity, Russia's NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, called for a land military force to confront the pirates on their home turf, but bitter past US experience in Somalia means this would be unlikely.

Nevertheless the alliance and the European Union have taken the fight to the seas.

NATO sent four warships into the Gulf of Aden last month on anti-piracy duties and to escort aid vessels, and the EU's larger mission will be in place from December 8.

France, India, South Korea, Russia, Spain and the United States also have ships in place to secure the entry to the Red Sea, which is vital to world trade.

Some successes have been recorded, with an Indian frigate notably destroying a pirate "mother vessel" in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, after coming under attack from gunmen aboard the boat. Some pirates have also been captured.

But the fact that a tanker the size of three soccer fields could be taken far off Kenya is testimony to the task these navies face.

According to the online specialist journal Mer et Marine (Sea and Navy), "the sector linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea is a veritable maritime super-highway with 20,000 to 30,000 trade vessels" moving through annually.

Thanks to the ransom money they are now reaping -- NATO estimates it totals some 100 million dollars so far -- and ships that have been taken, the pirates now have an operating radius of around 1,000 kilometres.

In the worst-case scenario, the arrival of these navies could push the pirates further out to sea, and even scores of ships with aerial surveillance would battle to provide security over such distances.

"You could have all the navies in the world having all their ships out there, you know, it's not going to ever solve this problem," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday.

Costs have also severely hurt the navies, who "have seen their numbers drop dramatically since the 1980s," said Joseph Henrotin, a Belgian maritime security specialist.

Even those who are well equipped "are not interested in finding themselves face to face with mad gunmen plied with Khat," a widely consumed narcotic leaf, he said.

In any case, experts generally agree that it would take considerable action and more than "punishment" to dissuade fishermen who turn to piracy out of poverty and insecurity in a country riven by civil war since 1991.

"The key to the problem lies on Somali territory," according to Mer et Marine, which recalled that piracy was kept relatively quiet for two years when Islamic Sharia law was in place.

Given the international experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will take time and significant funds to help build a stronger state, let alone a state of law, in Somalia.

Yet the economic stakes remain extremely high.

Shipping, which accounts for most of the world's trade, has now begun heading back and forth the long way, passing as in olden times around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa.

The world's navies, meanwhile, have put all options on the table.

"To reduce the pressures of piracy, the international community could decide to turn to hit and run attacks," Henrotin said, but he warned: "The pirates will move on and the relief will only be temporary."

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