MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's top university on Wednesday called for an investigation into an academic essay submitted by opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez in 2010, after local media reported allegations that parts of it were copied.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) said in a statement it had requested the engineering faculty director refer the matter to the university's technical and ethics committees to carry out "corresponding analysis."

Allegations that Galves had plagiarized parts of the academic report submitted for a computer engineering degree emerged on social media.

Galvez said in a video interview that the allegations related to a small part of the text where there is no clear credit.

"They are six paragraphs out of 77 pages, in which the important element is professional experience," she said.

Galvez is the leading opposition presidential candidate for the election next year, but trails in polls behind ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum as the country looks set to elect its first female president.

Earlier this year, in a high-profile plagiarism scandal, UNAM concluded that Supreme Court Justice Yasmin Esquivel had copied substantial parts of her 1987 thesis. Mexico's president said the allegations were born of political scheming.

(Reporting by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Christopher Cushing)