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Ms. Pillay, the Geneva-based high commissioner for human rights, drew attention to North Korea's "elaborate network of political prison camps" believed by human rights organizations to hold 200,000 prisoners. The camps not only punish people for legitimate and peaceful activities but also employ "torture and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment, summary executions, rape, slave labor, and forms of collective punishment that may amount to crimes against humanity," Ms. Pillay said.

There had been some initial hope that North Korea's change of leadership a little over a year ago might lead to improvement in its human rights practices, Ms. Pillay said, but "we see almost no sign of improvement." Instead, North Korea's self-imposed isolation had "allowed the government to mistreat its citizens to a degree that should be unthinkable in the 21st century," she said.

Human rights groups have lobbied hard for an international investigation over the past year and hope that Ms. Pillay's call will help to persuade Japan, with support from the United States and European Union, to sponsor a resolution at the next session of the Human Rights Council in March creating a commission of inquiry to examine conditions for North Korea's 24 million people.

Ms. Pillay and human rights groups hope to build on North Korea's growing isolation in the U.N. General Assembly and at the Human Rights Council, both of which passed resolutions condemning North Korea by consensus for the first time in 2012, unopposed even by China, the North's closest ally.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, who inherited the position from his father in December 2011, has sought to craft an image as a modernist but stated that his "first, second and third priorities" were to strengthen the military and stirred international alarm with its successful launch of a long-range rocket last month.

Ms. Pillay expressed concern that international preoccupation with North Korea's nuclear program and rocket launches had diverted attention from a human rights situation that has "no parallel anywhere in the world."

"What we are trying to do is put human rights as a priority in the international debate, on North Korea," said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva director of Human Rights Watch, one of more than 40 organizations in the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea backing the inquiry. "Right now it's nearly invisible," she said.

The Human Rights Council has supported an investigator monitoring human rights in North Korea since 2004 but Pyongyang has refused any cooperation and it was "time to take stronger action," Ms. Pillay said.

In an election campaign last month, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party pledged support for a United Nations inquiry into abductions of Japanese by North Korea but the government is still considering whether to sponsor a Security Council resolution calling for an international inquiry. "Japan is the leader on this issue," Ms. de Rivero said. "If they don't want it, it's not going to happen."