Nicola Sturgeon has insisted the UK can and must do more to help refugees fleeing Syria for Europe.
Scotland should accept 1,000 people as a “starting point” for further help, the First Minister said.
She also criticised the UK Government, accusing it of “struggling to show leadership in this refugee crisis”.
Ms Sturgeon said the crisis, sparked by hundreds of thousands fleeing from Syria to Europe, was the worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War.
People across the world have been shocked by images of desperate families seeking safety, with Ms Sturgeon admitting she had been reduced to tears by the picture of a drowned Syrian boy who was washed up on a Turkish beach.
She said such images would “haunt our consciences and reputation for many generations to come if we don’t together and collectively act to help those in desperate need”.
While she accepted a long-term solution to problems in Syria must be found, she argued: “We cannot and we must not leave our fellow human beings to perish in the meantime.”
The SNP leader said: “We here in Scotland and across the UK can do more, and I believe we must do more.”
Ms Sturgeon spoke at the start of an emergency summit in Edinburgh involvingthe Scottish Refugee Council, council leaders, religious groups and oppositionpoliticians, in discussions about what could be done to help.
Prime Minister David Cameron had said earlier that Britain will take “thousands more” refugees from camps on the borders of war-torn Syria.
He said the UK is already “providing sanctuary” to about 5,000 refugees from the camps and had provided around £900 million in aid – more than any other European country.
But while he said there is a “moral responsibility” to help refugees, he gave no indication that the UK would be willing to resettle any of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people who have made Mediterranean crossings by boat to reach Europe over the past few months.
Ms Sturgeon welcomed his comments but stressed: “We need to hear more detail now of exactly what is being proposed in terms of accepting thousands more refugees.
“This crisis is unprecedented in its nature but it is not beyond resolution if we act now and we act firmly, and with a response that matches the scale of the crisis.
“As I said in a letter to the Prime Minister last night, the scale of such a humanitarian emergency is immense but it is not insurmountable.”
She continued: “We recognise the need for long-term co-ordinated action to tackle the causes of this crisis but that cannot be a substitute for an immediate humanitarian response.
“We, with our neighbours and friends across the EU, have a moral obligation to offer a place of safety to desperate people fleeing conflict and persecution.
“This is a crisis that must transcend politics, what we need today is real, practical, collective and co-ordinated action to deliver help to those who need it.”
She said the summit she is hosting would provide a “a chance to examine how we in Scotland can play our full part in that”.
The First Minister said: “It has been suggested we in Scotland should ready ourselves to accept 1,000 refugees – I believe we should do so not as a cap or a limit, but as a starting point for a meaningful discussion about how much we can practically contribute.”
Both Scotland and the UK share a “long and proud tradition as a welcoming and a tolerant nation”, Ms Sturgeon said.
“Britain down the generations has distinguished itself in the welcome it has given to refugees fleeing war and persecution.
“It is that proud history of compassion and leadership, as well as our human despair at the images we see daily on our TV screens, that makes it, in my view, so desperately dispiriting to see the UK Government struggle to show leadership in this refugee crisis.”
She stated: “Make no mistake, our response to this crisis today, in Scotland and the UK and across the European Union, will be judged by history. I hope we can make future generations proud of us.
“I hope we can prove our proud traditions have not perished in a narrow debate about immigration, but that instead when the world is looking for leadership, courage and a simple display of common humanity we will be found standing eagerly at the front of the queue, not cowering timidly at the back.
“As First Minister of Scotland my message is a simple one: we stand ready in the best traditions of this nation to offer sanctuary to those who desperately need it.”