By Tabassum Zakaria

TEL AVIV, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Iran must bear the consequences of any new confrontation between U.S. and Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a senior U.S. official warned on Wednesday.

"This was a very provocative act by the Iranians and could have and came very close to resulting in an altercation between our forces and their forces," said Stephen Hadley, President George W. Bush's national security adviser.

Washington says Iranian boats aggressively approached three U.S. Naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz at the weekend and threatened that the ships would explode.

It released a video of the incident on Tuesday, including a recording of what it said was the exchange between the two sides. Iran rejected the footage as fake.

Bush also called the incident provocative before leaving Washington on a Middle East trip aimed at nurturing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts while rallying Arab opposition to Iran and its growing regional influence.

"They've got to be very careful about this because if it happens again they are going to bear the consequences of that incident," Hadley told reporters en route to Israel with Bush.

"It's the kind of incident that can provoke exchange of fire and we think the Iranians need to be on notice that they are fishing in troubled waters here," he said.

TENSIONS

The incident was the latest sign of tension between Washington and Tehran, at odds over Iran's nuclear programme and who is to blame for the violence in Iraq.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards rejected the video released by the U.S. Department of Defense as a fake.

"A senior official with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said ... the video and audio the U.S. Navy has released have nothing to do with an alleged confrontation between Iranian speedboats and three US warships in the Persian Gulf," Iran's Press TV reported on its Web site.

It said the images were archive pictures.

The video showed several images, including about three small launches moving near a U.S. ship.

The audio recording included a voice from a U.S. ship informing one of the small craft that it was "straying into danger and may be subject to defensive measures".

The small craft responded: "You will explode after a few minutes."

Iran's Parliament Speaker, commenting on Tuesday, described the U.S. account of the incident as "propaganda". The Iranian Foreign Ministry has also dismissed the U.S. report, saying it was a routine contact in the vital oil shipping route.

The Strait of Hormuz handles 17 million barrels per day of water-borne crude oil, over a third of total global shipments. (Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Tehran, Editing by Dominic Evans)

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