In Maya there is a rail - tool which generates a mesh given two curves.
The two curves span a mesh between them.
Anything like that in Blender?
No - that is a nurbs tool Blender does not have at all (sadly).
Crouch’s bridge tool script for 2.5 (recent builds) can do something similar in various cases.
Though it’s for meshes and not curves, so you’d have to convert the curves to a mesh and then use subsurf.
The surface sketch script was able to do that, but unfortunately it’s broken right now and apparently won’t be fixed until the API is more stable. Thing is tho, the script just combined functions already available in Blender, using the grease pencil and other tools (not sure which or how). So, it CAN be done, but I personally can’t help you with HOW it can be done. I’d like to know myself. I look VERY forward to the surface sketch add-on being fixed, for certain!!