The glitch came on the same day that a flood of sell orders forced the Tokyo stock exchange to close early after the volume of trades threatened to overwhelm that exchange's computer system. The Tokyo exchange has been hit by a series of system problems in recent months, including a glitch that halted business for almost a full day late last year.

Wednesday's early close in Tokyo was the first time the exchange was forced to halt trading due to capacity constraints since it opened under its current incarnation in 1949.

-- Reuters contributed to this report.