Updated
The United Nations Security Council is seeking "clarity" on claims Syrian government forces used toxic nerve gas to kill hundreds of people outside the capital Damascus.
The Syrian opposition claims as many as 1,300 people were killed in pre-dawn shelling of rebel-held areas outside Damascus on Wednesday.
Video footage posted online, which can not be immediately verified, shows people apparently convulsing and struggling for breath.
More footage shows dozens of seemingly lifeless bodies, among them many young children, some of them covered in white sheets.
It also shows medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed.
The Syrian regime has vehemently denied the claims, which they said are intended to hinder the work of UN weapons inspectors already in the country to investigate claims of earlier attacks.
A UN statement said chief Ban Ki-moon was "shocked" by the reports and the Security Council called an immediate meeting.
"There is a strong concern among council members about the allegations and a general sense that there must be clarity on what happened and the situation must be followed closely," Argentina's envoy Maria Cristina Perceval said after the talks.
The Security Council stopped short of demanding a probe by UN investigators already in Syria.
Rudd says allegations 'repugnant beyond description'
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Australia has co-authored a letter to Mr Ban, urging him to send teams to Syria to "establish the facts".
"The use of weapons of mass destruction in any circumstances is intolerable and unacceptable in any civilised nation," he told a press conference.
"When weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, are used against civilian targets, it is repugnant beyond description."
Washington has previously described chemical weapons use as a red line that might prompt it to intervene militarily in Syria.
Mr Rudd says if the allegations prove to be accurate, world powers should act.
"I think all countries in the world would have a view that in the year 2013, if there is a factual basis to any regime in the world using chemical weapons against people, frankly we enter into a new level of barbarism and therefore all civilised nations in the world have a responsibility then to act," he said.
"The first step is to establish the facts which was the exclusive focus of the emergency session held at the UNSC."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says if true, the "utterly reprehensible" allegations would constitute a crime against humanity.
"I think it is important that the international community do what it reasonably can to try and bring a measure of peace and justice to that tragically war-torn country," he said.
Britain and the US had earlier called for the UN weapons inspectors to be given full and immediate access to the scene.
"I hope this will wake up some who have supported the Assad regime to realise its murderous and barbaric nature," British foreign secretary William Hague told reporters in Paris.
His French counterpart Laurent Fabius called the alleged attack "a horrendous tragedy" not seen since thousands of Iraqi Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein's forces at Halabja in 1988.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said the allegations "should be immediately and thoroughly investigated".
Russia, which has previously said it has proof of chemical weapons use by the rebels, expressed deep scepticism about the opposition's claims.
The Russian foreign ministry said the timing of the allegations as UN inspectors began their work "makes us think that we are once again dealing with a premeditated provocation".
There have been frequent claims by anti-regime activists of chemical weapons use by the army, particularly in Damascus province and in the central region of Homs.
'Brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime'
Opposition sources accused the army of multiple chemical weapons strikes - one in Moadamiyet al-Sham, south-west of Damascus, and more in the capital's eastern suburbs.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists, reported hundreds of casualties in the "brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime".
The attack "led to suffocation of the children and overcrowding field hospitals with hundreds of casualties amid extreme shortage of medical supplies to rescue the victims, particularly atropine," the LCC said.
The opposition National Coalition's George Sabra, who spoke to reporters in Istanbul, said more than 1,300 people had been killed in what he said was a "coup de grace that kills all hopes for a political solution in Syria".
"The Syrian regime is mocking the UN and the great powers when it strikes targets near Damascus, while the (UN weapons inspectors) are just a few steps away," he said.
Army says reports are false
State news agency SANA said the "reports on the use of chemical weapons in Ghouta (the Damascus suburbs) are totally false".
"It's an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission," it said.
The news agency described Wednesday's violence as "a series of operations" by army units "against terrorist groups" in Jobar, Irbin and Zamalka, "killing a number of them and destroying their hideouts".
In a statement, the army flatly denied as "null, void and totally unfounded" the opposition's allegations, describing them as a "desperate bid to conceal their failures on the battlefield".
Doubts raised over video evidence
Some specialists in the impact of chemical weapons have said the video evidence was not entirely convincing.
"At the moment, I am not totally convinced because the people that are helping them are without any protective clothing and without any respirators," said Paula Vanninen, director of Verifin, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
"In a real case, they would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms."
John Hart, head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said he had not seen the telltale evidence in the eyes of the victims that would be compelling evidence of chemical weapons use.
"Of the videos that I've seen for the last few hours, none of them show pinpoint pupils... this would indicate exposure to organophosphorus nerve agents," he said.
However, chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon says the images contain all the hallmarks of nerve gas poisoning.
"There do appear to be a lot of dead people with no outward wounds or blood," he told the ABC.
"They've died from something. Some of the symptoms, like the open mouth [are consistent with nerve poisioning]."
ABC/wires
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, syrian-arab-republic
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