Copies of The Diary of a Young Girl and associated books found with pages torn out in what appears to be a concerted campaign

More than 200 copies of books about Anne Frank, including copies of the diary the Jewish teenager wrote in hiding during the second world war, have been vandalised in libraries across Tokyo.

At three libraries in Shinjuku ward, 10-20 pages were torn from The Diary of a Young Girl, biographies of Frank and books about Nazi persecution of Jews, leaving 39 books "unusable", archives director Kaori Shiba told AFP. Meanwhile, 119 books were damaged at 11 of the 13 public libraries in Suginami area, according to their deputy director. "Each and every book which comes up under the index of Anne Frank has been damaged," Toshihiro Obayashi said.

Satomi Murata, the head of Tokyo's public libraries council, said: "We have had complaints from five of (Tokyo's 23) wards so far, but I don't yet know exactly how many libraries are affected. We don't know why this happened or who did it."

Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told journalists: "This is a shameful act, and I am confident that the police authority is making a thorough investigation."

The incidents are drawing widespread international condemnation.

"The Anne Frank House is shocked that pages have been torn out of over 200 copies of Anne Frank books in libraries across Tokyo," said executive director of the world-famous museum, Ronald Leopold.

"We are very keen to know the reasons why this is happening and what the culprits hope to achieve by such destructive action.

"In Japan, countless people are interested in the history of Anne Frank and her diary, and every year, tens of thousands of Japanese people visit the Anne Frank House, where Anne Frank was hiding and where she wrote her diary."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, believes "the geographic scope of these incidents strongly suggest an organised effort to denigrate the memory of the most famous of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis," he said in a statement.

"I know from my many visits to Japan how much Anne Frank is studied and revered by millions of Japanese. Only people imbued with bigotry and hatred would seek to destroy Anne's historic words of courage, hope and love in the face of impending doom," said Cooper. "We are calling on Japanese authorities to step up efforts to identify and deal with the perpetrators of this hate campaign."

Gillian Walnes, executive director of the Anne Frank Trust, said it was "a very strange and disturbing incident – or series of co-ordinated incidents", adding: "I really hope the Japanese authorities will find who is behind this. Was it someone working alone or something altogether more sinister?"