National Children's Commissioner Anne Hollonds says a taskforce is needed to fix recurring problems in youth detention, adding she was pushing the attorney-general to raise the age of criminal responsibility.
"This should not just be left to be a states' issue, we need a national approach just as we've taken, for example, with domestic violence," she told ABC Radio on Tuesday.
Her comments come after more proof of brutal treatment at Perth's Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre was revealed.
Video of a teenager being subjected to the use of a hogtie or folding-up technique - considered to pose a risk of suffocation or death - was broadcast on the ABC's Four Corners program on Monday night.
The technique involves a person's arms and legs being forced against their head and officers using their body weight to restrain the individual.
The practice was outlawed in Queensland in 2017, while the Northern Territory royal commission into the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre found it posed "significant risks of injury or death".
Ms Hollonds said she was shaken by the fresh reports of mistreatment, but she added they were no different to the "horrors" of Don Dale.
"What we need now is accountability for action," she said.
The WA Department of Justice has said prison officers were only authorised to use the folding-up restraint as a last resort when there was a safety risk to staff or other detainees.
Four Corners also revealed a council of attorneys-general report, which had been finalised in 2020 but never publicly released, recommended lifting the criminal age of responsibility nationwide to 14.
"They know the truth that locking up young children does not keep the community safer ... we need to get on with this now, this is an absolute national shame," Ms Hollonds said.
The children's commissioner added she had contacted Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and other ministers to raise issues about the youth justice system in the hope of seeing a federal-led approach to fixing the ongoing issues.
"I'm hoping now that we may be able to actually have that conversation about what we do nationally to transform youth justice in this country," Ms Hollonds said.
Save the Children WA state director Amanda Hunt said no person - let alone a child - should be subjected to the abuse that had been revealed at Banksia Hill.
"Physically restraining incarcerated children in this way shows a deeply concerning disregard for their safety and wellbeing, and a serious lack of commitment to their rehabilitation," she said.
A group of organisations, including Amnesty International, doctors groups and the Law Council of Australia, have been campaigning for the criminal age of responsibility to be increased to 14 in all states and territories.
Royal Australasian College of Physicians president Jacqueline Small said more needed to be done to ensure children weren't incarcerated for behaviours that were a direct consequence of their young age.
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