Toyota Motor Corp. will halt manufacturing operations at five factories in Europe for several days in April through May due to disruptions in parts supply caused by the March 11 mega-earthquake-tsunami disaster in the Tohoku region, the company said Tuesday.

The automaker has already said it will suspend all output operations at most of its 14 North American factories for four to five weekdays later this month.

As inventories of Japanese-made parts have declined, the automaker appears to be facing difficulties continuing production. Output suspensions may expand to factories in other areas as Japanese parts producers continue to struggle to recover from the disaster, observers said.

Toyota said it will halt output operations at its assembly and engine manufacturing factories in Britain, its assembly factories in France and Turkey and an engine manufacturing plant in Poland.