maybe some handy perl module

Take a look at Statistics::Regression. Not a "recommendation" as I've never used it, but it might get you started.

It is also possible, and often more effective and efficient, to tackle this kind of problem using Genetic Programming algorithms.

But you need to know pretty well what conclusions you are looking for up front to construct the algorithm, and that often leads to the curse of statistics: the forgone conclusion. Ie. Finding exactly what you set out to find.

But done properly -- using independent criteria -- it can reach conclusion -- positive ot negative -- very quickly. Which can be very useful for exploring a whole gamut of possible correlations and rejecting many of them as early as possible. You can then concentrate the usually slower, more laborious, formal arithmetic techniques on the few remaining.