"In both calls, the National Security Advisors consulted on appropriate and robust joint and international responses and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reinforced the United States' ironclad commitments to the defense of Japan and the ROK (South Korea)," national security spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement issued on Monday evening, local time.

North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan on Tuesday, prompting Tokyo to activate the country's missile alert system and order people to take shelter.

In a separate statement, the US Indo-Pacific Command also condemned the missile launch.

"The United States condemns these actions and calls on the DPRK to refrain from further unlawful and destabilizing acts," it said in a statement issued Monday, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.

The last time North Korea fired a missile over Japan was in 2017, at the height of a period of "fire and fury" when Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un traded insults with then-US president Donald Trump.