After a closed-door briefing from UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who visited the country last month, Security Council members said it would be up to Ban to decide if a visit would be productive.
"It's up to the Secretary General to decide if the time is right and under what conditions he wants to go," said French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert after the session.
British Ambassador John Sawers said "should the Secretary General decide he will visit, that will be a welcome step... It's up to (him) to go. He's not going to be sent there or refused support."
Michele Montas, a spokeswoman for Ban, said no decision on the trip had been taken.
Gambari, who is tasked with bringing opposition leaders and the government together, met in January with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi but failed to secure a meeting with Myanmar's head of state Senior General Than Shwe.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 19 years under detention by the junta that has ruled the country since 1962. Her National League of Democracy won a landslide election victory in 1990 that the junta refused to recognize.
Gambari told reporters his visit had been "more balanced," because he held meetings with opposition and minority representatives.
But commenting on state media reports that Myanmar may be ready to release more than 6,000 prisoners in time for elections in 2010, Gambari was cautious.
"I have not received official communication, I would like to see the official list of the persons released. But it's fair to welcome the release of prisoners," he said.
State television did not say if any of the country's estimated 2,000 political prisoners would be among those to be freed starting from Saturday, but the main opposition party said some of them may be released.
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">Myanmar junta announces 6,300 convicts to be freed
State radio and television announced that the convicts from various prisons would be released starting Saturday. The brief announcement said that 6,313 prisoners were being freed in recognition of their good conduct and so that they would be able to participate in a general election planned for next year.
Human rights groups estimate that the regime holds more than 2,100 political detainees, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention without trial.
When the junta freed 9,002 prisoners last September, only about a dozen were political detainees.
In recent months, the junta's courts have sentenced more than 100 dissidents, including some of the country's most prominent activists, to prison terms that would keep them incarcerated well past the 2010 polls. The junta says the elections will restore democracy, but critics charge they will be a sham to keep the military in control.
The top U.N. envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, who recently visited the country, told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York that he had not received any official communique from the government and was waiting to see how many of the prisoners were criminals and how many were political prisoners.
"At the same time I believe it's fair to welcome the release of prisoners, particularly political prisoners," Gambari said.
Asked for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's reaction, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas echoed Gambari, saying "it still remains unclear whether and how many political prisoners this deal may include."
"We encourage the government to release all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," she said.
Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962, is shunned by Western nations because of its poor human rights record. The ruling generals came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy uprising and killing as many as 3,000 people.
The junta called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.
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