When I try to build packages from pkgsrc I keep getting the error

checking for C compiler default output file name... configure: error: C 
compiler cannot create executables

When I look at config.log it tells me the exact command it is trying to 
execute, which when I doon the command line works ok. All files are owned 
by my - I double checked by doing chown -R on the relevan directories. I 
must be misssing something trivial. Any ideas?

If it matters: i386 machine