gnome-terminal: custom keystrings

Hey Gnome,

so I'm running text mode applications in gnome-terminal and I need 
occasionally to customize the keystrings they receive for combo keys.

Is there a way to do that? Can I set for combo keys my custom 
keystrings that go through to the applications? How?

It can be done easily in xterm with ~/.Xresources or ~/.Xdefaults but 
gnome-terminal does not read them.

Thanks and regards

frank