diff --git a/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py b/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
index 8ad952db5e..820090c657 100644
--- a/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
+++ b/easybuild/easyblocks/generic/configuremake.py
@@ -44,12 +44,12 @@
 from easybuild.easyblocks import VERSION as EASYBLOCKS_VERSION
 from easybuild.framework.easyblock import EasyBlock
 from easybuild.framework.easyconfig import CUSTOM
-from easybuild.tools.build_log import print_warning
+from easybuild.tools.build_log import print_warning, EasyBuildError
 from easybuild.tools.config import source_paths, build_option
 from easybuild.tools.filetools import CHECKSUM_TYPE_SHA256, adjust_permissions, compute_checksum, download_file
 from easybuild.tools.filetools import read_file, remove_file
 from easybuild.tools.py2vs3 import string_type
-from easybuild.tools.run import run_cmd
+from easybuild.tools.run import check_log_for_errors, run_cmd
 
 # string that indicates that a configure script was generated by Autoconf
 # note: bytes string since this constant is used to check the contents of 'configure' which is read as bytes
@@ -324,6 +324,11 @@ def configure_step(self, cmd_prefix=''):
         )
 
         (out, _) = run_cmd(cmd, log_all=True, simple=False)
+        try:
+            check_log_for_errors(out, ['configure: WARNING: unrecognized options:'])
+        except EasyBuildError as err:
+            self.log.deprecated("Unknown arguments for configure used: %s" % err, '5.0')
+            print_warning("Unknown arguments for configure detected: %s" % err)
 
         return out