The banner said "Please help as my husband was arrested unjustly," according to the official.
No further details of the women could be obtained and the U.S. embassy wasn't immediately available for comment.
More than 2,100 political prisoners are currently in Myanmar jails, according to U.N. figures, many serving decades-long sentences and often kept in grim conditions.
The embassy is near a road that leads to the house of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in jail facing trial on charges of breaching her house arrest after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside residence.
The Nobel laureate's legal team was due in court on Friday to appeal against a ruling by the trial judges barring three out of the four defense witnesses from testifying.
"We are preparing for tomorrow as we have to give our statement," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, or NLD, and also one of her lawyers.
He said the team had to go to the trial court at Insein prison on Friday for final arguments in the case to be officially postponed, before attending the separate Yangon divisional court for the hearing on the witnesses.
"The (trial) court will give us another date for final arguments. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will also appear at the trial and we have to tell her about the revision (appeal) for defense witnesses," he said.
The three barred witnesses were Win Tin, a dissident journalist who was Myanmar's longest serving prisoner until his release in September; Tin Oo, the detained deputy leader of Suu Kyi's party; and lawyer Khin Moe Moe.
Myanmar's ruling junta has already kept Suu Kyi in detention for 13 of the past 19 years and the latest attempt to lock her up has provoked international outrage.
The U.S. State Department criticized Myanmar's ruling junta late Wednesday, saying it had put Suu Kyi on trial "for being polite."
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated in a speech marking the centenary of the birth of U Thant, the late U.N. chief who died in 1974, that he intended to visit Myanmar soon.
"It is a sad irony that U Thant's vision of democracy has not been realized in his own country. That is why I would like to visit Myanmar again this year," he said in the remarks issued by the world body.
Japan meanwhile said it had sent a special envoy to Myanmar to talk to the junta about the opposition leader. Kenichiro Sasae, deputy minister for foreign affairs, was to meet senior officials, a ministry spokesman said.
Myanmar's ruling generals say the case is an internal matter.
The country, formerly known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962. The NLD won the popular vote in 1990 elections but was never allowed to take power.
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