Recently discovered an issue in SharePoint 2007 when creating a new Page under Pages Library, we were getting "Access Denied" error message in "CreatePage.aspx" page. The users accessing the site have "Full Control" and they are getting the "Create Page" option in the "Site Actions" menu, so this should not be a security problem. This was really shocking and finally could find a solution for the same. The User or Group needs to also have "Read" permission to the master page gallery, and then this works fine.
Resolution:
- Go to Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Modify All Site Settings.
- Go to Galleries -> Master pages and page layouts.
- Within the Master pages library/list, Select Settings -> Document Library Settings.
- Select Permissions for this document library.
- Add "Restricted Read" access to the User or Group.
After this we should not have any issue in creating Pages in pages library.