A new report has revealed a significant increase in the number of Indigenous women being imprisoned across Australia.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Social Justice Report has found the incarceration rate for Indigenous women has jumped by more than 200 per cent of the past decade.

Report author Dr William Jonas says the judicial system is failing Indigenous women.

"Indigenous women also serve comparatively shorter sentences suggesting a general failure to employ the principle of imprisonment as a last resort. In other words it doesn't matter what it is, lock them up," he said.