United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice denied on Thursday reports that a draft resolution on Iranian sanctions was circulating among members of the UN Security Council.

"We are not at the present circulating a draft text of a resolution to Council colleagues here in New York," she told reporters after a closed-door Council meeting on Sudan and Iran.

The New York Times on Thursday said Council diplomats had confirmed seeing a U.S.-drafted resolution that proposes tougher sanctions on Iran's banking, shipping and insurance sectors.

The proposed sanctions call for an outright ban on certain transactions with Iran, whereas the existing sanctions called on UN members to exercise "vigilance" or "restraint" in interacting with Iran in some areas of weapons trade, shipping and banking, said the Times article.

The Iran issue has been discussed among the five permanent members of the Security Council -- China, France, Britain, Russia and the United States -- and Germany, known as P5 Plus One.

"We continue to have constructive discussions with all our partners of the P5 plus One, who agree that we share the crucial goal of not allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity," Rice said.

The United States and its Western allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover-up to build atomic weapons. Tehran denies the allegations.