diff -r 3a880d640981 Lib/distutils/command/check.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/command/check.py	Tue Sep 18 07:21:18 2012 +0300
+++ b/Lib/distutils/command/check.py	Tue Sep 18 13:22:58 2012 +0200
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
 
         def system_message(self, level, message, *children, **kwargs):
             self.messages.append((level, message, children, kwargs))
+            return nodes.system_message(message, *children, **kwargs)
 
     HAS_DOCUTILS = True
 except Exception: