Yes the noble gases do react, but as you said only at very high temperatures and to the best of my knowledge they have only been able to get xenon to react with fluorine gas. This mainly the case because fluorine gas has an extremely high tendency to strip electrons from any atom that it can get its hands on, and because the electrons in the other shell of xenon are non held in as tight as the electrons in the closer shells.
but the whole reaction is carried out at high temperatures to increase the kinetic energy of the atoms/molecules so that there is a higher probabiltiy of them coliding with each other.
Jamesy
