Nov 17 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank could effectively force troubled countries out of the euro if it wanted to by refusing to accept their debt as collateral in its lending operations, the head of the German debt agency said on Thursday. "If you look at the treaties, if I am not completely mistaken there is no way to get out (of euro)," Carl Heinz Daube, the managing director of the German finance agency said during a panel discussion at euro finance week. "But hypothetically one could think that the ECB might not be willing any longer to take the sovereign bonds of one, two or three or four countries, so this might mean technically they might have to step out," he said. He added that he didn't know if that would be the best solution to the debt crisis but said that the euro zone had to use a single powerful institution, and preferably one of its existing ones, to tackle the troubles. "We need some kind of institution which is powerful to support the next steps." "If you look at the perception of the market there is still a lack of confidence and this is an indicator the solution might not be looking the best." "It might be the ECB, it might be the EFSF it might be the ESM or something new," he said, stressing institutions like the ECB had plenty of the powers needed.

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