THE US military has lost more than one thousand "sensitive" nuclear missile parts, officials close to the Pentagon say.

A recent investigation condemning the US military's accidental shipment of nuclear cones to Taiwan also found that the US Air Force doesn't know what happened to many other nuclear parts, The Financial Times reported.

The US Air Force chief of staff and air force secretary were sacked by US Secretary Robert Gates after the investigation.

Mr Gates said the Pentagon would do a stocktake on every piece of nuclear weapon-related parts “to re-establish positive control of these sensitive, classified components”.

“(The investigation discovered) the gradual erosion of nuclear standards and a lack of effective oversight by air force leadership,” Mr Gates said.

A senior defence official told the newspaper that the investigation did not suggest that US nuclear missile parts were in the hands of countries that should not have them.