DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. yesterday confirmed a recent meeting between the company’s top executive and the leadership of rival Toyota Motor Corp. and characterized it as a standard business event that mirrors past practices at the company.

“We meet regularly with other automakers on a variety of topics of mutual interest,” the company said in a statement posted on its media Web site Wednesday as a comment on Toyota talks. Company representatives who comment on such matters could not immediately be reached to elaborate on the statement.

The meeting between Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally and Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho took place last week in Japan, according to a Tuesday report published by The Wall Street Journal. Other high-level executives from both companies attended the meeting. Mr. Mulally recently joined Ford from Boeing Co. and is known to be a student of Toyota’s operating techniques.

Toyota spokesman Irv Miller also confirmed the meeting occurred, but said the company does not discuss details of high-level meetings. “Early meetings with competitive management are generally cordial in style with no formal agenda.”

A source familiar with Ford’s plans said Wednesday that more meetings with Toyota are expected in the future. Toyota and Ford earlier in the decade inked a technology-sharing deal under which Ford received some hybrid-vehicle patents and Toyota received diesel-engine technology, and the source said similar projects are possible in the future.

The meeting between Mr. Mulally and Mr. Cho took place as the two auto makers are headed in dramatically different directions.

Ford lost $7 billion over three quarters of 2006 and is not projecting a profit until 2009. Ford has ceded American market share to Toyota in recent years and is set to fall behind Toyota in the American sales chase as early as 2007. Toyota, meanwhile, is the fastest growing of large auto makers selling in America and is consistently more profitable than most of its rivals.