diff --git a/configure b/configure
index 9b7dd0c1..79ba3200 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -4473,6 +4473,8 @@ _ACEOF
 
   LIBS="-lxml2 $LIBS"
 
+else
+  as_fn_error $? "libxml2 not found" "$LINENO" 5
 fi
 
 fi
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 3c9f8cc9..ee1946d2 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ AC_CHECK_LIB(dl, dlopen)
 AC_ARG_WITH(libxml2,  [  --with-libxml2          use gnome/libxml2 regex engine ] )
 if test "${with_libxml2}"; then
    # Find libxml2 lib
-   AC_CHECK_LIB(xml2, xmlRegexpCompile)
+   AC_CHECK_LIB(xml2, xmlRegexpCompile,[], AC_MSG_ERROR([libxml2 not found]))
 fi 
 
 #