(Corrects company name in first paragraph)

Sept 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing whether Pacific Investment Management Company artificially inflated returns on its Pimco Total Return ETF, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

The probe, which has been under way for months, examines if the $3.6 billion fund bought investments at discounted prices but relied on higher valuations for the investments when the fund calculated the value of its holdings shortly thereafter, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/1yq8JiC)

The SEC is inquiring whether Pimco provided investors with wrong information about the fund's performance, the report said.

Pimco "has been cooperating with the SEC in this nonpublic matter, and we take our regulatory obligations and responsibilities to our clients very seriously. We believe our pricing procedures are entirely appropriate and in keeping with industry best practices," the newspaper quoted a spokesman as saying.

SEC could not be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Ankush Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)