GENEVA — A senior Iranian emissary hinted on Friday that Iranian authorities might be prepared to free a Washington Post correspondent who has been inexplicably imprisoned and kept virtually incommunicado since July 22.

The emissary, Mohammad Javad Larijani, who was attending a United Nations Human Rights Council session, said that security service officials had prepared charges against the correspondent, Jason Rezaian, for activities “entering the area of the security of the state.” But he added that he hoped the charges would be dropped during court proceedings that he expected to start “soon.”

Mr. Larijani, a member of a politically powerful Iranian family and secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, declined to elaborate on the charges. Nor did he further specify the status of Mr. Rezaian’s case in the opaque Iranian judicial process. Mr. Rezaian has not been able to hire a lawyer because no charges have been formally made.

But Mr. Larijani’s suggestion that the charges — whatever they may be — could be dismissed went beyond what other top Iranian officials have said about the mysterious case.