London and Frankfurt saw small gains while Paris was nearly flat in the absence of major European data and with trading subdued on a national holiday in France and parts of Germany.
Investors are also waiting for the UK's first official hard data since the Brexit vote, with statistics coming out later this week on inflation, unemployment and retail sales.
But on Wall Street all three indices were above record highs struck last week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent around mid-day in New York as the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced nearly 0.7 pe cent.
Dow members Chevron and ExxonMobil gained as oil prices rose on speculation that producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would agree to limit output next month and ease the global supply glut.
In London BP shares closed up one percent.
In Asia most markets advanced on Monday but Tokyo dipped as official figures showed Japan's economy stalled in the second quarter.
Japanese officials are under increasing pressure to deliver as economists are writing off Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's years-long bid to cement a lasting recovery, dubbed Abenomics.
Tokyo recently announced a whopping 28 trillion yen (USD 276 billion) package aimed at kickstarting growth.
"The recently announced fiscal and monetary stimulus measures were clearly insufficient to satiate the market's appetite," said London Capital Group analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.
"The bulk of investors expect to hear more measures from the government and Bank of Japan (BoJ) to boost growth. The problem is that neither the BoJ, nor Shinzo Abe's government have much left in their pockets to satisfy the unappeasable hunger for free liquidity."
Chinese shares rallied on hopes the government would soon launch a scheme to link trading on the Shenzhen exchange with the Hong Kong bourse.
Hong Kong rose 0.7 per cent, while Shanghai finished the day up 2.4 per cent after the China Securities Regulatory Commission said on Friday that the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect scheme would be launched this year.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
