Configure error python development version needed??

I'm running centos 6.0

Using python 2.7 and boost 1.44 installed numpy scipy, expat and other
dependencies

when I run configure

./configure --prefix=/opt LDFLAGS=-L/opt/lib CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/include
CXXFLAGS=-I/opt/include

I am producing an error: (I have Python.h installed since I compiled
python2.7 from source)

checking consistency of all components of python development environment...
no
configure: error:
  Could not link test program to Python. Maybe the main Python library has
been
  installed in some non-standard library path. If so, pass it to configure,
  via the LDFLAGS environment variable.
  Example: ./configure LDFLAGS="-L/usr/non-standard-path/python/lib"