At least three suspected Chinese spy balloons flew over the US undetected during the Donald Trump presidency, defence officials have said.

The US did not detect the balloons at the time, said Gen Glen VanHerck, citing a "domain awareness gap".

They may have initially been classified as UFOs, according to the New York Times and Bloomberg.

The US has since classified them as surveillance balloons, based on additional intelligence.

Gen VanHerck, the Pentagon official responsible for US airspace defence, said on Monday there was a gap in military intelligence at the time.

"It's my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats," he said.

A suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down by the US military over the weekend after it spent days travelling through American airspace.

The US Navy is still working to recover the debris off the coast of South Carolina.

The balloon incident has strained US-China relations, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week cancelling a planned trip to Beijing.

It would have been the first high-level meeting of American and Chinese officials there in years.

The White House has credited a directive by President Joe Biden to intelligence agencies to increase efforts to identify spying operations in the US with helping to flag the recent incident..

"We enhanced our capacity to be able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect," said White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan.

On Monday, John K Kirby, a US National Security Council spokesman, confirmed suspected surveillance balloons flew over the US during Mr Trump's time in office.

"From every indication that we have, that was for brief periods of time — nothing at all like what we saw last week in terms of duration," he said.

On Truth Social, Mr Trump dismissed the reports as "fake disinformation".

Mark Esper, who served as defence secretary under Mr Trump, told CNN on Friday that he was "surprised" to hear of reports of spy balloon from that time.

"I don't ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States," he said.

Chinese officials have denied that the balloon that crossed the continental US last week was used for spying purposes, claiming it was a weather balloon that had flown off course.

• ·BREAKING NEWS: LA Lakers FINALLY make a move to get LeBron James consequentlyme help as they 'are in advanced talks on a trade for Wizards forward Rui Hachimura'... with Washington to get 'Kendrick Nunn and multiple second-round picks' in return 
• ·Milwaukee Bucks' billionaire co-owner Marc Lasry 'agrees to SELL his controlling share of team to Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam for $3.5billion' - in the second massivgest sale in NBA history
• ·EXCLUSIVE: Girl, four, was mauled by pack of 'XL Bully' dogs: Mother screamed 'Help my baby' as child was assaulted on a playdate - after dogs 'escaped from home of breeder who keeps 14 animals in the property and in a caravan outside'
• ·PICTURED: Denver boy, 17, acc utilized of shooting two school workers during daily weapons search he was ordered to undergo due to 'prior behavior': One victim is critical and in hospital
• ·Judge orders Mark Meadows to testify in Georgia's criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the election
• ·EXCLUSIVE: 'Gary Glitter is still a danger to consequentlyciety': Victim says the 'monster' pop singer 'devastateed her life' and should never have been released from priconsequentlyn as he walks free after serving half his sentence for sexually abusing child
• ·FBI has raided University of Delaware TWICE to probe Biden's 'mishandling' of classified documents - but didn't find any secret papers there 
• ·PICTURED: Mississippi man, 52, acc utilized of shooting six people dead including his ex-wife at three locations in tiny town of 285 where 'everyone knows everyone'
• ·Jessica Pegula eases past Barbora Krejcikova to seal Australian Open quarter-final spot... and American is now the HIGHEST seeded woman left in the tournament
• ·Jury reaches VERDICT in E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of rape after just three hours of deliberation: Former President says he will appeal if found liable of 'false allegations'
• ·EXCLUSIVE: American spy on secondment to GCHQ was stabbed by alleged terrorist just three miles from its Cheltenham headquarters 
• ·Exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui is arrested on $1BN fraud charges by FBI in NYC: 'Scamster' with links to Steve Bannon spent millions on mansion, yacht, Lamborghini (and $50K on fireplace log holder) 
• ·China country profile
• ·'I'm tired of hiding': Actress who put Harvey Weinstein behind bars for another 16 years at his L.A. trial comes forward to describe how he raped her in Beverly Hills hotel room in 2013
• ·Ex-Labour MP Jared O'Mara is found guilty of fraud for trying to claim £24,000 in expenses to fund 'extravagant' lifestyle including five-gram-a-day cocaine habit 
• ·Republicans SUBPOENA the CEOs of Amazon, Microconsequentlyft, Apple, Meta and Alphabet for all documents on 'collusion' with the government to 'suppress free speech'