Toyota came under fire from the US administration Tuesday for its slow handling of a massive recall as the giant Japanese carmaker scrambled to reassure customers on safety.

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota's recall of millions of vehicles with defective pedals that can get stuck and cause unwanted acceleration came only after pressure from the US government.

"Since questions were first raised about possible safety defects, we have been pushing Toyota to take measures to protect consumers," LaHood said in a statement.

"While Toyota is taking responsible action now, it unfortunately took an enormous effort to get to this point."

Safety regulators are "considering a civil penalty against Toyota," an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Toyota said Monday it had not been forced into the voluntary mass recalls, insisting the decision to stop US sales and production of eight affected models was "entirely ours."

A spokesman for Toyota's US operations acknowledged Tuesday that it had discussed the matter with LaHood and was "grateful for his advice."

"Secretary LaHood said to us that the soonest possible action would be in the interest of our customers," said Mike Michaels, Toyota Motor Sales USA's vice president in charge of communication.

"We took his advice very seriously and instituted a recall," Michaels said in a conference call discussing the automaker's US sales, which were down 8.7 percent in January.

"We're grateful for his advice and we feel we've been given a chance to regain our customers' trust."

Meanwhile, the recall of cars with possible sticking accelerator pedals spread Tuesday to about 180,000 vehicles in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America that were imported from the United States.

Recall forces US supplier into defense

That follows the recall of 1.8 million vehicles in Europe on Friday and brings the number of vehicles affected to almost eight million worldwide -- roughly equivalent to Toyota's entire 2009 global sales.

The company said that in rare cases, the accelerator pedal mechanism could become worn and harder to depress, or get stuck in a partially depressed position.

It has also recalled 5.3 million vehicles in the United States because the pedal could get stuck on floor mats.

Toyota's US unit says the Japanese company had "developed and rigorously tested" a fix for accelerator pedals in faulty models and had also come up with "an effective solution" for vehicles currently in production.

But it continues to face questions as to whether the mechanical solution it presented will be sufficient or if the problem is actually in the electronics.

While Toyota insists that it has tested and found no faults in the electronics, LaHood warned that US safety officials will continue to investigate the problem.

Toyota has actively expanded overseas over the past decade to meet brisk demand for its cars, prompting critics to question whether its renowned quality control has weakened in the process -- a suggestion the group denies.

"I do not think that the expansion of the production overseas has affected the quality," Toyota vice president Shinichi Sasaki told a news conference Tuesday, at which he issued a fresh apology for the company over the massive recall.

"We have full trust in engineering and quality," added Sasaki, the first Toyota executive to talk publicly in Japan about the recalls since they spread around the world last week.

The company is still unsure what the financial impact of the recalls will be for the automaker, Sasaki said.

"The cost is going to be high but we needed to do this," he said. "Before we worry about the impact, we should worry about the customers and the dealers."

Toyota draws flak over recall PR strategy

DeutscheBank estimated that the direct cost of the recall would be in the range of 60 billion yen (556 million dollars) and that lawsuits, advertising, incentives and other indirect costs could top 100 billion yen (1.1 billion dollars).