By Blaise Robinson

PARIS (Reuters) - European stocks ended lower on Thursday after a rollercoaster session, as a coordinated move by the world's leading central banks to ease the credit squeeze failed to halt the equities selloff that started on Monday.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed 0.6 percent lower at 1,063.62 points, falling for the fourth straight session and ending at its lowest closing level since April 2005.

The index has lost around 9 percent so far this week, and is on track for its biggest weekly drop since the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. The declines follow Lehman Brothers' LEH.P collapse, the takeover of Merrill Lynch MER.N and the bailout of insurer AIG (AIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

"There are a lot of pending issues in the financial sector, and probably a lot of bad surprises in the pipeline," said Jean-Claude Petit, head of equities at Barclays Wealth Managers France.

"This crisis constitutes a turning point in the business model of banks and the way Wall Street works. Consolidation among banks is inevitable. But these are "arranged marriages" under the pressure of the U.S. authorities."

The world's top central banks joined forces on Thursday to throw a multi-billion dollar lifeline to global markets in a dramatic effort to free up bank-to-bank lending, frozen by the turmoil on Wall Street.

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Federal Reserve made an extra $180 billion (98.6 billion pounds) available to major central banks to lend on to their local commercial banks in a bid to get dollars circulating in overnight and term money markets.

European banking stocks, which had had a tentative recovery earlier in the session, ended the day mixed.