The northern African leader has been pushing for a unity government across the continent for long but the crisis in Somalia has overshadowed his views at this recent summit. Many African states say the idea is impractical and would encroach on their sovereignty.

"We are approaching the formation of the African Authority, and each time we solve African problems and also move in the direction of peace and unity. We deal with problems step by step. We are continuing to do that," Gaddafi said in a Reuters report.

Gaddafi held the African Union's rotating chairmanship last year, and he used it to push for the organisation's small executive body to be granted enhanced powers and remodelled as the African Authority.

Asked about that proposal on Tuesday, Gaddafi said: "Studies are still continuing and it is not finished yet. Experts and the people responsible are still studying the documents. They might be completed at the next summit or after."

Some African leaders say they cannot be expected to cede sovereignty to any African bloc just decades after they wrested it away from their colonial rulers.

But Gaddafi's idea has had a sympathetic response in some states, helped by his reputation in parts of the continent as a champion of the developed world and also by the millions of dollars in aid his oil-exporting country spends in Africa.