RIGA (Reuters) - NATO leaders will study at a summit starting on Tuesday whether the alliance should take more action to avert potential threats to energy supplies, for example by mounting patrols of key shipping lanes.

The talks in the Latvian capital Riga, the first NATO summit on former Soviet soil, come amid Western concerns that Russia is exploiting its vast energy wealth to gain political influence over import-dependent countries in Europe.


"Energy security is a NATO-relevant subject," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Reuters in an interview ahead of the Riga summit.

"I hope heads of state and government will ask us in the North Atlantic Council to define the added value that NATO could bring in the discussion on energy security," he said of the alliance's main policy-forming council.