The closed-door meeting was boycotted by Sudan, whose government rejected US pressure to accept a US-British draft resolution calling for the deployment of UN troops.
The proposed 17,000-strong force would take over from the ill-equipped and under-funded African Union (AU) mission, which has proved unable to prevent killings, rape and internal displacement of civilians in the region.
The meeting of the 15-member council was also attended by representatives of the African Union, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
But the Sudanese government, which had also been invited, did not participate, an absence which US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton called "disappointing to say the least."
Warning that the situation risks getting out of control in Darfur amid fears of a government offensive against rebels, ambassador Bolton said Washington and London would press for a vote on their draft before the end of the month.
"The sticking point is how to handle consent by the government of Sudan," he later told reporters, making it clear that the UN peacekeepers had no intention of forcing their way into Darfur.
The deployment of UN peacekeepers is seen as crucial to bolstering a fragile Darfur peace deal signed in May and preventing further bloodshed.
Frazer's Sudan mission
Meanwhile US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, who travelled to Khartoum to win over the Sudanese government, was not able to see Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
But she was handed a letter for US President George W. Bush in which the Sudanese leader reiterated his firm opposition to the UN troop deployment.
Secretary Frazer's last-ditch mission to Sudan got off to a bad start Saturday when she was greeted at the airport by shouts of "Go Home" as an angry mob tried to cover her vehicle with anti-US banners.
Earlier Monday Rick Grenell, a spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations, accused China of blocking progress on the deployment of the UN force.
China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the council which has close energy ties with Khartoum, and a couple of African countries on the council "don't view Sudan as a priority", Mr Grenell added.
Ghana's UN Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the council president for August, said his country was prepared to support the draft. The other two African members of the council are Congo and Tanazania.
Mr Bolton said the council's five veto-wielding permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - would meet shortly "to see if we can find a way through this, hoping for a vote in a couple of days".