By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS, May 30 (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on Wednesday to share detailed information on kidnappings in order to improve their expertise on freeing hostages, a document seen by Reuters shows.

EU envoys backed the adoption of a form to be shared among EU states, including how the kidnapping took place, whether the hostage takers asked for a ransom, how the issue was resolved, by whom, and the hostage profile, an EU official said.

"Terrorists have already kidnapped numerous EU citizens to achieve their political goals, demonstrate their dangerousness or extort money," says the text, set to be rubber-stamped by EU justice and interior ministers at a meeting on June 12-13.

"In case of a kidnapping this information could help to quickly identify whether another member state already has experience with kidnapping of EU citizens in the same region, by the same terrorist group or under comparable circumstances," the text said.

The EU decision comes after a string of high-profile kidnappings, including that of BBC journalist Alan Johnston in Gaza in March.

The document does not provide a definition of what it calls "terrorist kidnappings" but the EU has its own list of terrorist organisations, which includes Spain's ETA Basque group, the Palestinian Hamas group and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Italy has asked for common international rules on hostage crises, after being criticised by the United States and Britain after five Taliban were released in return for the liberation of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month said he supported drawing up international rules.

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