WASHINGTON — President Obama said Saturday that he had learned only last week that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private email system for her official correspondence while she was secretary of state.

In an interview with Bill Plante of CBS News, Mr. Obama said the policy of his administration was to “encourage transparency” and that he was pleased that Mrs. Clinton had instructed the State Department to turn over her emails for archiving.

“My emails, the Blackberry I carry around, all those records are available and archived,” Mr. Obama said, according to an excerpt from the interview released Saturday evening. “I’m glad that Hillary’s instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.”

In the portion of the interview that was released, Mr. Obama did not address how he could have avoided noticing that Mrs. Clinton was sending emails from a “clintonemail.com” address throughout the years she served in his administration. Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email system was first reported by The New York Times last week.