An image processing apparatus and an image processing method capable of performing matching processing with a small amount of calculation and highly accurately detecting a motion vector, etc., provided with a first feature extraction portion 13 for extracting a feature and spatial coordinates of a focused pixel from information of a current frame; a second feature extraction portion 14 for extracting from information of a reference frame a feature, a focused pixel, spatial coordinates of the focused pixel, spatial coordinates of vicinity region of the focused pixel, and distance information of the focused pixel with respect to the spatial coordinates; a database creation portion 15 for creating a database indicating relative relationship of the feature, the focused pixel, the spatial coordinates in the vicinity of the focused pixel and the distance information of the focused pixel with respect to the spatial coordinates; and a motion vector detection portion 16 for obtaining spatial coordinates of a shifted position by calculating by searching distance information linked to the feature from the database based on the feature extracted by the first feature extraction portion 13.