Its not possible to access any PHP function inside Twig directly.
What you can do is write a Twig extension. A common structure is, writing a service with some utility functions,
write a Twig extension as bridge to access the service from twig. The Twig extension will use the service and
your controller can use the service too.
Take a look: http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/templating/twig_extension.html
Cheers.