Binding an unknown number of parameters using mysq

I'm trying to make a search in a table, something like this: http://www.phpjabbers.com/free-scripts/mysql-search-table/search.php

I figured out that I could just concatenate a string depending on the search form $_GET so I can query it all after getting the parameters:

$query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE status = 1"
if($_GET['param1']{
  $query = $query." AND param1 = ?";
}
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare($query);

That would be perfect if I wouldn't have to add:

$stmt->bind_param('i',$_GET['art']);

I was following this post's instructions: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11152781/679333, but the wildcard part didn't work. Instead of that for loop I referenced the variables when I pushed them into the array:

array_push($user_terms, &$_GET['var']);

It works, but now I'm getting a "Deprecated: Call-time pass-by-reference has been deprecated" warning.

I don't want to ignore the warning because I read Call-time pass-by-reference has now been killed from PHP.

A bit sloppy, but gets the job done.

function refValues($arr){
    if (strnatcmp(phpversion(),'5.3') >= 0) //Reference is required for PHP 5.3+
    {
        $refs = array();
        foreach($arr as $key => $value)
            $refs[$key] = &$arr[$key];
        return $refs;
    }
    return $arr;
}

$params = array();

$query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE status = 1";

// Iterate over your paramters from $_GET
foreach ($_GET as $k => $v) 
{ 
  if(!empty($v)
  {
    $query .= " AND $k = ?";
    $params[$k] = helper::sanitize($v);
  }
}
// After you get through all your params...

$stmt = $mysqli->prepare($query);

// Bind em.
call_user_func_array(array($stmt, 'bind_param'), refValues($params));

That should do it, though I've never bound with mysqli before. Let me know how that works.