Originally Posted by
KLouis
All of the above are 100% correct. As for the linked ESTA-passport, a week or so after I lost my Greek passport a few years ago during a Miami-Rome flight (don't ask how...) and reported that to the police station at FCO, I received an email from a "noreply" US government address stating that my ~year-old ESTA had been revoked without prejudice and that I'd have to get a new one after obtaining a new passport if I wanted to visit the States again.
When you reported your passport as lost/stolen, the process began to get your passport info loaded into the Interpol database for lost and stolen travel documents, a database the US queries systematically to invalidate ESTAs in batches (and to potentially otherwise flag people traveling to the US -- even if using still valid and acceptable international travel documents).