German carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler have launched a recall of 1.5 million vehicles in the United States due to potentially faulty airbags.

Cars containing airbags made by Japanese company Takata Corp have been the focus of a long-running global safety crisis, with millions recalled since issues first surfaced in 2009.

Some Takata airbag inflators are vastly overpowered, and can spray metal shrapnel into vehicle passenger compartments when they go off.

They were identified as factors in at least 10 deaths worldwide and hundreds of injuries, leading 14 automakers to recall close to 24 million US vehicles so far.

In the latest round, Volkswagen is recalling 680,000 vehicles in the US, while Daimler wants to bring back 840,000 US vehicles for checks.

The recall affects VW models built between 2006 and 2014, but the company has not specified which specific models.

Daimler is recalling about 705,000 Mercedes-Benz cars and about 136,000 vans, including the Mercedes-Benz SLK convertible, the C-Class and E-Class sedans, the M and GL-Class sports utility vehicles as well as the R-Class and SLS coupe made between 2005 and 2014.

Daimler is also recalling Dodge, Freightliner and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans made between 2007 and 2014.

Daimler says it has not been told of any airbag failures in its vehicles, and it expects numbers of vehicles involved in the recall will drop after further technical studies by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).