ECB chief Mario Draghi said today the bank will "do what we must" to lift inflation as quickly as possible, in a new sign it could boost its anti-deflation defences.
He made his comments in a speech at the Frankfurt European Banking Congress,.
Mr Draghi warned that inflation was stubbornly way below the target of close to 2% even though the bank has deployed a €1.1 trillion scheme to help lift consumer prices.
The quantitative easing programme to buy sovereign bonds at a rate of €60 billion a month runs until at least September 2016, but inflation came in at zero in October.
"If we decide that the current trajectory of our policy is not sufficient to achieve that objective, we will do what we must to raise inflation as quickly as possible. That is what our price stability mandate requires of us," the European Central Bank chief said.
Expectations have risen since the ECB governors' last meeting on October 22 that the bank would launch more stimulus to push up inflation.
Minutes of the meeting showed that some members were even starting to mull over the possible option of further cutting the ECB's key lending rate, which is already at a record low of 0.05%, the minutes published today showed.
But Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann warned against hastily boosting stimulus measures, saying "we should not forget that the monetary policy measures already taken still need time to fully feed into the economy".
"We need to be aware that the longer we stay in ultra-loose monetary policy mode, the less effective this policy will become and the more the attendant risks and side-effects will come into play," he said.
Weidmann also warned of the risk that governments could get used to the low interest rates and be lulled into not undertaking real reforms.
Central bankers of the euro zone are keen to fight falling prices because they can be poisonous for the economy, creating a vicious circle of falling demand and fewer jobs.
While falling prices might appear to be good for consumers, deflation can become entrenched if consumers delay purchases in the hope of lower prices later, which in turn prompts companies to hold off investment.
The ECB's governing council will next meet in early December.
