A man walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on January 17, 2022, after North Korea fired an unidentified projectile eastward in the country's fourth suspected weapons test this month according to the South's military. (Image Credit: AFP)

Japan also reported the launch, with chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno condemning it as a threat to peace and security.

In less than two weeks, nuclear-armed North Korea has conducted three other missile tests, an unusually rapidseries of launches. Two of them involved single "hypersonic missiles" capable of high speed and manoeuvring after launch.

Japanese Defence Minister NobuoKishi said the missiles appeared to have travelled about 300 km and landed in the ocean near North Korea's east coast.