diff --git a/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16.tif b/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16.tif
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..13f78ee5
Binary files /dev/null and b/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16.tif differ
diff --git a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
index 90fffdc4..b63aecd9 100644
--- a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
+++ b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ def imread(fname, dtype=None):
             im = im.convert('RGB')
     elif im.mode == '1':
         im = im.convert('L')
-    elif im.mode == 'I;16':
+    elif im.mode.startswith('I;16'):
         shape = im.size
         dtype = '>u2' if im.mode.endswith('B') else '<u2'
         im = np.fromstring(im.tostring(), dtype)
diff --git a/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py b/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
index 058e1dc9..b01bd42f 100644
--- a/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
+++ b/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
@@ -51,6 +51,14 @@ def test_bilevel():
     img = imread(os.path.join(data_dir, 'checker_bilevel.png'))
     assert_array_equal(img, expected)
 
+@skipif(not PIL_available)
+def test_imread_uint16():
+    expected = np.load(os.path.join(data_dir, 'chessboard_GRAY_U8.npy'))
+    img = imread(os.path.join(data_dir, 'chessboard_GRAY_U16.tif'))
+    assert img.dtype == np.uint16
+    assert_array_almost_equal(img, expected)
+
+
 class TestSave:
     def roundtrip(self, dtype, x, scaling=1):
         f = NamedTemporaryFile(suffix='.png')