Leading legislators have mounted a challenge to a controversial European Union plan to increase biofuels use, saying that more information is needed on the impact of the far-reaching proposal.

Claude Turmes, Dorette Corbey and Anders Wijkman, who are central to steering the EU plan through the European parliament, want the union’s target - that 10 per cent of transport fuel be derived from plants by 2020 – to be reconsidered.