On a visit last weekend to the rally of Portugal he said: "It would work in turbocharged form for F1 and then all the way down to naturally aspirated form for the lesser categories and in a turbocharged or naturally aspirated form for the world rally championship."
The FIA president said the planning phase of the project is in its "very early days", with the car manufacturers to be involved. In the case of F1, he said "peripheral areas" of the engine will be open for development, including KERS and other energy recovery systems to be introduced.
Asked for further information, he said energy could be collected not only from braking heat as at present, but "from exhausts and even from the cooling system".
Referring to the universal FIA engine, he added: "If we can - and I'm not sure we can - find a way of combining all forms of motor sport in that system then this would be useful because of the huge sums spent on motor sport."