Los Angeles Police Department officials on Friday were interviewing officers and scouring electronic records amid growing suspicion that someone inside the department leaked or sold to a celebrity website a photo of the singer Rihanna that depicted injuries to her face she suffered during an alleged assault by her boyfriend.

Police officials said it appears the photo is part of the LAPD's ongoing investigation of Chris Brown, the pop star who allegedly assaulted the singer in the early morning the day of the Grammy Awards two weeks ago.

On Friday, Police Chief William J. Bratton said that it would be an embarrassment to the department if an employee was responsible for the leak. He said any officer or department employee who is found to have leaked the photo will face discipline, including possible termination.

In spite of all the intense, global interest spurred by breathless coverage in tabloids and entertainment publications, the LAPD has not named Rihanna, whose real name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, as the woman in the attack, citing state laws that protect the identity of assault victims.

The LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are ever grappling with the challenge of keeping investigations involving celebrities confidential. The problem has grown only worse with the meteoric rise of celebrity gossip websites, which have joined traditional tabloids and paparazzi agencies in the cutthroat industry of airing stars' dirty laundry.

Although a photo showing Rihanna's injuries had been the Holy Grail among the tabloids, one paparazzi veteran estimated its value as being fairly moderate. Frank Griffin, a partner of the Bauer-Griffin photo agency that has sold some of the best-known tabloid images, said the picture was not offered to him and thought the seller would not make more than $25,000. The price, he said, would be limited because, without a legitimate contract from a known photographer, TMZ would not be able to prevent other sites from copying the photo and claiming it as their own.

A TMZ spokeswoman declined to comment on how the photo was obtained, other than to say it was acquired legally while on Friday Police officials refused to discuss details of their investigation.

The handling and access to photos of abused women has been a issue recently in the department. For years, officers typically attached photos from domestic violence cases to the hard-copy reports they wrote during their investigations. With the advent of digital technology, however, patrol officers now commonly carry department-issued cameras and use them to take images at the scene of alleged abuse cases. Those photos are downloaded to a central computer server in the department, so they can be retrieved later by detectives assigned to a case, according to an LAPD detective supervisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the case.