Hundreds of Indonesians protested outside the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta on Thursday over the use of a traditional Javanese dance in a tourism advertisement for the neighbouring nation.

The demonstrators travelled by bus from East Java and demanded that Kuala Lumpur offer an apology "to all the people of Indonesia," they said in a statement read out during the protest.

"If the Indonesian government does not, we demand a severing of diplomatic ties with Malaysia," said Purnomo Sidi, the head of the Association of Reog Ponorogo, reading the statement.

Reog Ponorogo is a dance from East Java's Ponorogo region which features a dancer carrying a large, heavy headdress with the head of a tiger surrounded by peacock feathers.

It is also comprised of characters dancing with whips and at least two effeminate young men riding bamboo horses.

Malaysia features the dance, renamed the "Barongan Dance," in its advertisement.

Spats regularly erupt between Indonesia and Malaysia over an array of issues, particularly Malaysia's treatment of the some two million Indonesians who work there, both legally and illegally.

Protests were also held over the use of the song "Rasa Sayang," or "Feeling of Love," which Indonesia says is from its Maluku province, in a separate Malaysian advertisement earlier this year.