The way it's solved for readline-dependent shells in Debian is by providing several relevant bindings in /etc/inputrc:
# mappings for Ctrl-left-arrow and Ctrl-right-arrow for word moving "\e[1;5C": forward-word "\e[1;5D": backward-word "\e[5C": forward-word "\e[5D": backward-word "\e\e[C": forward-word "\e\e[D": backward-word $if term=rxvt "\e[8~": end-of-line "\eOc": forward-word "\eOd": backward-word $endif Something like this should cover it portably enough?
