Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error.

Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the west African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix.

Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers.

The Pentagon said it had taken steps to address the issue.

According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago.

Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails.