cross compiling applications

I am using crosstools-0.38 to build a toolchain for an ARM linux board
running
kernel 2.6.11. First I built it on a Linux host machine, used it
to cross compile a C application then downloaded it to the target. It
works
fine. I then repeat the process, using exactly the same configuration,
on a PC host using cygwin. The toolchain built fine and I can use it to

build kernel modules that run without problem. But for applications,
the generated code does not execute on the target. It complains not
finding something (garbled text). The code was statically built.
I have no clue what it is missing and why it works for code built
by Linux host, but not by Cygwin. Thanks for any pointers.

./a.out: 1: 7F%@ C3%A1 C3%A3C2%B00C5%B8C3%A5SC3%A1C2%AC0C5%B8$(C`=
 C3%B0 
(BpC3%A3$(00C3%A5(B:
not found
./a.out: 2: $(Ce(B0C5%B8C3%A5RC3%A1: not found
./a.out: 6: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

The toolchain
    binutils-2.15
    gcc-3.4.2
    glibc-2.3.3
    linux-2.6.11
    glibc-linuxthreads-2.3.3