Japan's naval chief of staff Koichi Furusho told reporters earlier in the day Japan had confirmed that a North Korean missile had been test-fired, but after a blunt denial by South Korea of any missile launch, officials backtracked, saying they were still trying to confirm reports of a launch.

Shoei Yamanaka, chief of the defence agency's secretariat, "corrected the remark," according to an agency spokesman.

"It was not right to say we had confirmed missile firing as a fact, but what is right is that we have obtained information suggesting a missile firing," Yamanaka was quoted as saying.

"We are still checking details, including whether a missile was actually fired or not," the spokesman said. He refused to disclose the source of the apparently erroneous information, but said it had not come from one of Japan's new spy satellites.

Shortly after the Japanese announcement of a missile firing, South Korea's defense ministry issued a forceful denial, saying no evidence of a missile launch existed after consultations with Washington.

"Based on the result of South Korean and US military intelligence authorities' investigation, we confirm again there was no missile launch from North Korea today," a spokesman said as military analysts in Seoul suggested that the test-firing of an artillery piece could have been confused with a missile launch.

The news on the missile firing broke after Land, Infrastructure and Transport minister Chikage Ogi announced the missile launch at the end of a parliamentary committee session.

"I just received a preliminary report that North Korea seems to have fired a surface-to-vessel missile at 10:15 am, that the launch site was Hwajinri in Pyongannamdo (province) on the opposite side (of the Korean Peninsula) from the previous launch site and that its range was 60 kilometres (38 miles) like the previous time," a ministry spokesman quoted Ogi as saying.

Speculation has been rife in the Japanese media that North Korea would test-fire another missile around the time of Japan's placing into orbit last Friday of its first spy satellites, a move denounced by Pyongyang as a "hostile act" that could spark a new arms race.

North Korea test-fired short-range anti-ship missiles on February 24 and March 10, sparking fears especially in Japan that the Stalinist nation was preparing to test a ballistic missile.

In 1998 Pyongyang test-fired a medium-range Taepodong ballistic missile that overflew the country and splashed down in the Pacific.

North Korea is believed to have deployed some 100 Rodong-1 missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometres (805 miles), capable of striking any target in Japan.

Analysts have said the series of short-range missile tests was part of Pyongyang's game of brinkmanship aimed at breaking US resolve during the tense stand-off over the North's nuclear weapons drive.

bur-mis-ja/rcw

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