Defense Department officials suggested today that a Canadian plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines to patrol Arctic waters was aimed more at closing important sea passages to the United States and the Soviet Union than at increasing allied naval power in the Arctic.

Canada claims waters in the northern archipelago as coming under Canadian sovereignty. ''We don't recognize that,'' a senior Pentagon official said. American submarines pass through those waters without seeking Canadian permission.

The officials said it was possible that a future Canadian government would use the existence of its own nuclear submarine force as ground to challenge the passage of American submarines along the protected routes through the archipelago.

Beyond that, the officials suggested that the Canadian proposal, disclosed over the weekend in Canada, raised political, military and technological questions about where Canada would get the submarines, how they would learn to operate them and whether they would act in concert with the United States. #10 Submarines Planned Senior officials said Canada had not asked the United States for its views on a program to build 10 nuclear-powered submarines over the next 20 years. Such a plan, if carried out, would put Canada in a league with Britain and France, and ahead of China, in such weapons.