diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 304b342..2668850 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ CHANGES
 2.1.1 - unreleased
 ------------------
 
+- New option ``doctests`` to run Pyflakes checks on doctests too
 - Fix Git and Mercurial hooks, issues #88 and #133
 - Fix crashes with Python 3.4 by upgrading dependencies
 - Fix traceback when running tests with Python 2.6
diff --git a/flake8/_pyflakes.py b/flake8/_pyflakes.py
index cf80612..fff4fbf 100644
--- a/flake8/_pyflakes.py
+++ b/flake8/_pyflakes.py
@@ -38,16 +38,22 @@ class FlakesChecker(pyflakes.checker.Checker):
     name = 'pyflakes'
     version = pyflakes.__version__
 
+    def __init__(self, tree, filename):
+        super(FlakesChecker, self).__init__(tree, filename, withDoctest=self.withDoctest)
+
     @classmethod
     def add_options(cls, parser):
         parser.add_option('--builtins',
                           help="define more built-ins, comma separated")
-        parser.config_options.append('builtins')
+        parser.add_option('--doctests', default=False, action='store_true',
+                          help="check syntax of the doctests")
+        parser.config_options.extend(['builtins', 'doctests'])
 
     @classmethod
     def parse_options(cls, options):
         if options.builtins:
             cls.builtIns = cls.builtIns.union(options.builtins.split(','))
+        cls.withDoctest = options.doctests
 
     def run(self):
         for m in self.messages: