Horrific detail has emerged from a UN report on human rights abuses in North Korea suggesting prison officials in the state "cooked" a female prisoner’s baby and "fed it to their dogs".

The alleged "unspeakable atrocities" were published for the first time in February when a 372-page report by an independent UN panel of inquiry into the North Korean regime was released.

Even more disturbing detail was brought to light on Monday however, when members of the UN Security Council put the issue of human rights abuses in the state on the agenda for the first time.

Among the many accounts described in the Commission of Inquiry report were recollections of rapes, mass starvation and forced abortions.

In Monday's meeting, US Ambassador Samantha Power cited even more shocking accounts from defectors who fled prison camps in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - accounts Pyongyang has dismissed as fabricated.

"Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners," she was quoted by Reuters as saying. "In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported, prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs."

In pictures: Life in North Korea Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Life in North Korea In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea Boys play soccer in the town of Hyesan in North Korea's Ryanggang province. AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea Young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea A group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan, North Korea AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea Portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are illuminated on a building side as the sun rises over Pyongyang. AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea's North Hwanghae province. AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea's North Hamgyong province AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea A North Korean man pushes his bicycle to a village in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea North Korean residents walk on a road along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea The remains of lunch sits on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea AP In pictures: Life in North Korea North Korea Farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. AP

The report's account of the incident added that higher ranking guards could sexually abuse female inmates providing they do not become pregnant. It claimed women who did become pregnant would usually be sent to harsh mining work or secretly executed.

Mr Ahn also described another occasion where a guard “sat on a chair and used a fishing rod, baited with pork fat to entice a nude female prisoner to crawl like a dog and jump after the meat”.

Mr Power spoke to the council of another prisoner, Kim Young-soon, who said she and other prisoners were so hungry they would pick through kernels of corn from cattle excrement.

The UN report estimates that between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are currently detained in four large political prison camps, where starvation is often used a means of control.

Ivan Simonovic, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, said such an “extensive charge sheet” has rarely been brought to the council’s attention.

The crimes listed in the report drew comparisons between Nazi-era atrocities and included:“extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”

North Korea angrily refused to attend the meeting on Monday and said it "totally rejected" the attempt to bring it in front of council.

It previously branded those who fled the North and aided the inquiry as "human scum".