diff --git a/tests/Makefile.am b/tests/Makefile.am
index cbe8e86224..4c2856bf97 100644
--- a/tests/Makefile.am
+++ b/tests/Makefile.am
@@ -454,7 +454,9 @@ EXTRA_DIST += $(test_scripts)
 if WITH_LINUX
 check-access: file-access-clean
 	VIR_TEST_FILE_ACCESS=1 $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) check
-	$(PERL) check-file-access.pl | sort -u
+	$(PERL) $(abs_srcdir)/check-file-access.pl \
+		$(abs_builddir)/test_file_access.txt \
+		$(abs_srcdir)/file_access_whitelist.txt | sort -u
 
 file-access-clean:
 	> test_file_access.txt
diff --git a/tests/check-file-access.pl b/tests/check-file-access.pl
index ea0b7a18a2..2926126b14 100755
--- a/tests/check-file-access.pl
+++ b/tests/check-file-access.pl
@@ -24,8 +24,12 @@
 use strict;
 use warnings;
 
-my $access_file = "test_file_access.txt";
-my $whitelist_file = "file_access_whitelist.txt";
+sub usage {
+    die "$0 access_file file_access_whitelist\n";
+}
+
+my $access_file = shift or usage();
+my $whitelist_file = shift or usage();
 
 my @known_actions = ("open", "fopen", "access", "stat", "lstat", "connect");