The two sides blamed each other for the clash, the first for seven years, near the disputed Yellow Sea border just a week before a US presidential visit to South Korea, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon calling for "maximum restraint."

President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency meeting of security ministers as his Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan accused the North of making a "direct attack" on a South Korean high-speed patrol craft.

"There was no damage on our side, while a North Korean patrol boat engulfed in flames sailed back (across the border)," Chung told parliament.

He described the clash, which follows recent peace overtures from the North, as unplanned. But some analysts said Pyongyang may be sending President Barack Obama a message before he arrives in South Korea as part of an Asian tour.

Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told parliament the North's boat sailed more than 1.6 kilometres (one mile) south of the border: "I believe they clearly knew about the intrusion."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South's boat sent several warning signals after the North's craft crossed the border, but the intruder held its course.

After the South fired warning shots, "the North's side opened fire, directly aiming at our ship. Then our ship responded by firing back, forcing the North Korean boat to return to the north," a statement said.

"There were no casualties on our side. We are on the lookout for any further provocations by the North," it said.

"We fired heavily on the North Korean vessel," an unidentified navy official told Yonhap news agency, adding the initial assessment was that it suffered considerable damage.

"We express our strong protest to North Korea and urge it to prevent a recurrence of such incidents," said Brigadier-General Lee Ki-Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He said the two sides exchanged fire for two minutes from a distance of about three kilometres. The North fired about 50 rounds, 15 of which hit the South Korean boat.

The defence ministry said the South Korean boat fired about 200 rounds from its more modern armament.

The border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) has always been a potential flashpoint and was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

General Lee said the North had breached the NLL 22 times this year but this was the first time the South had to fire warning shots because the patrol boat kept intruding despite five warning signals.

North Korea's military, however, told its South Korean counterpart to apologise for a "grave armed provocation" and said Seoul's ships had opened fire while its craft was north of the border.

In a report on official media, the North said its boat "lost no time to deal a prompt retaliatory blow at the provokers."

In a warning to Pyongyang, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "I would say to the North Koreans that we hope that there will be no further actions in the Yellow Sea that could be seen as an escalation."

UN Secretary General Ban "is closely watching the situation on the Korean peninsula. He calls for maximum restraint by both parties," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Dongguk University, told YTN television: "This might be an intentional clash aimed at heightening tension ahead of Obama's trip.

"I believe North Korea is trying to show Obama the volatility of the peninsula. North Korea has demanded a peace pact be signed with the US to replace the truce agreement (which ended the 1950-53 war)."

But Yang Moo-Jin, of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, told AFP that had it been a deliberate provocation, the North would have mobilised more than one boat.

Pyongyang has been putting out peace feelers to Seoul and Washington after months of hostility marked by its missile test-launches and a nuclear test.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is to send its first mission to North Korea, led by special envoy Stephen Bosworth, to jumpstart denuclearisation talks, US officials said Tuesday, although a date has not been set.

Discussions would take place within the framework of six-party talks which led to the 2005 and 2007 agreements for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, the State Department said.

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