North Korea has developed camouflage materials such as stealth paint to hide its warships, tanks or fighter jets from foreign reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, reports said Monday.

A confidential field manual used by the communist North's military showed the isolated regime has also built a network of foxholes and caves, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.

The newspaper said the manual quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il as saying: "Modern warfare is stealth warfare. We can say that victory or defeat will be determined by how we carry out stealth warfare."

The handbook, printed in 2005, was smuggled out of the North by a source through Caleb Mission, a South Korean Christian organisation.

It gives detailed instructions on how to make and apply the stealth paint, which absorbs radar waves, Chosun Ilbo said.

The South's defence ministry confirmed the North's military had used the manual for years.

"We have already acquired a copy of the manual and are fully aware of the North's tactics," a ministry spokesman told AFP, declining to give details.

The manual describes how to conceal facilities or equipment and how to make military units look as though they are moving when they are not, to deceive South Korean and US reconnaissance.

Chosun Ilbo quoted an unnamed intelligence expert as saying he was surprised to find that the North's military has done "more intensive and careful research into stealth tactics than we thought".

Yonhap news agency carried a similar report.

The handbook describes concealing long-range artillery equipment by applying radar-reflective materials, it said.

The North's military was also ordered to pave fake aircraft runways to deceive foreign prying eyes, Yonhap said.