The kingdom, home to the holiest sites in Islam, in Mecca and Medina, had already condemned Wednesday's incident in which an Iraqi citizen living in Sweden, Salwan Momika, 37, stomped on the Muslim holy book and set several pages alight. 

The foreign ministry summoned the ambassador on Sunday to urge Sweden "to stop all actions that directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation and rejection of extremism, and undermine the necessary mutual respect for relations between peoples and states", the official Saudi Press Agency reported. 

Momika's Quran burning coincided with the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday and the end of the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, triggering widespread anger. 

Countries including Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have also summoned Swedish ambassadors in protest. 

Iran said on Sunday it was holding off on sending its new ambassador to Sweden because of the incident. 

At an extraordinary meeting on Sunday at its Jeddah headquarters, the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called for collective measures to avoid future Quran burnings. 

Swedish police had granted Momika a permit in line with free speech protections, but authorities later said they had opened an investigation over "agitation against an ethnic group", noting that Momika had burned pages from the Islamic holy book very close to the mosque. 

Sweden's government condemned Momika's actions on Sunday, calling them "Islamophobic".

Meanwhile, Pope Francis said the burning of the Quran, made him angry and disgusted and that he condemned and rejected permitting the act as a form of freedom of speech, Reuters reported.

"Any book considered holy should be respected to respect those who believe in it," the pope said in an interview in the United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Ittihad, published on Monday. "I feel angry and disgusted at these actions.

"Freedom of speech should never be used as a means to despise others and allowing that is rejected and condemned."

Turkey, whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the NATO military alliance, also condemned the incident.

While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Quran demonstrations, courts have over-ruled those decisions, saying they infringed freedom of speech.

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