Pitt and Jolie are shooting the film in the Indian city of Pune

The pair, who are in India making a film based on the journalist's life, made the donation on what would have been Mr Pearl's 43rd birthday.

Jolie plays his wife Mariane in A Mighty Heart, which is being produced by Pitt's company Plan B.

Mr Pearl was abducted and killed while on assignment in Pakistan in 2002.

The charity, founded in the wake of his death, observed his birthday on Tuesday with a series of musical events around the world.

Jolie recently said that she was "disappointed" that the film could not be made in Pakistan due to safety concerns.

'Shocking'

Meanwhile, Jolie has accused Western governments of trying to shut out refugees, stating that more than 7,000 migrants have died during the past year in their attempts to enter Europe.

The actress, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), told the organisation's magazine Refugees of how a picture showing a couple sunbathing on a beach close to the washed-up body of an African man had affected her.

"We'll never know who he was or why he ended up there and the couple on the beach apparently couldn't care less," said Jolie in the article.

She added that her experiences of meeting refugees had been "a truly humbling experience, a shocking eye-opener".