The production of pseudo scalar, Eeta, Eta-prime, and vector, Omega, Rho, Phi, mesons in NN collisions at threshold-near energies is analyzed within a covariant effective meson-nucleon theory. It is shown that a good description of cross sections and angular distributions, for vector meson production, can be accomplished by considering meson and nucleon currents only, while for pseudo scalar production an inclusion of nucleon resonances is needed. The di-electron production from subsequent Dalitz decay of the produced mesons, $etato gamma gamma^* togamma e^+e^-$ and $omegato pigamma^*to pi e^+e^-$ is also considered and numerical results are presented for intermediate energies and kinematics of possible experiments with HADES, CLAS and KEK-PS. We argue that the transition form factor $omegato gamma^*pi$ as well as $etato gamma^*gamma$ can be defined in a fairly model independent way and the feasibility of an experimental access to transition form factors is discussed.
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