By Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS, July 18 (Reuters) - The European Union is set to take a first tentative step on Monday towards sending forces to eastern Chad to help the United Nations protect refugees from Sudan's Darfur region, an EU official said on Wednesday.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno had urged the 27-nation bloc on Tuesday to send troops and helicopters swiftly to improve security for refugees and aid workers as part of efforts to contain violence spreading from Darfur.

The official said ministers would ask the EU's crisis management and military staff to plan a possible European Security and Defence Policy mission to support the U.N. presence in eastern Chad and the Central African Republic.

"The council will recall the need to address the destabilising impact of the Darfur crisis on neighbouring countries," the official said after two days of consultations in the EU's political and security committee.

"The ministers will give a mandate for their competent agencies to prepare for a support operation in support of the United Nations," he said.

It was too early to speculate on the size of the force or to say which countries would contribute troops, but France, the former colonial power in Chad, would clearly provide the backbone of the operation, the official said.

Guehenno told Reuters in an interview he wanted the EU to deploy highly mobile troops by the end of 2007, for about a year, to protect a zone 900 km long by 200-400 km (560 by 125-250 miles) in Chad.

"There is a humanitarian urgency in Chad," he said. Deteriorating security had complicated aid efforts in recent weeks, "Hence the interest of a joint EU-U.N. effort."

The United Nations would train and support Chadian police while the European Union would protect civilians and the U.N. mission.

In Darfur, at least 200,000 people are estimated to have died and more than 2 million chased from their homes since fighting flared in 2003 when African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudan government in a conflict over resources.

Eastern Chad has some 230,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 170,000 of its own citizens displaced as a consequence of the conflict, with over 700,000 more affected by violence, Guehenno said.

In June Chad's President Idriss Deby rebuffed a French proposal to set up a humanitarian corridor through Chad's violent east to get help to Darfur's refugees, but he later dropped his opposition to foreign military intervention.

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