PEM_read_PrivateKey() is a wrapper around PEM_ASN1_read() (which reads an
arbitrary ASN.1 object from a PEM-encoded blob) and d2i_PrivateKey() (which
knows how to read a private key blob specifically).
PEM_ASN1_read() simply creates a BIO from the FILE* that you give it, and calls
PEM_ASN1_read_bio(). If you want, you can instead create a BIO from your string
using something like BIO_new_mem_buf() and call PEM_ASN1_read_bio() yourself.
(A BIO is an openssl object that's like a more general-purpose FILE*.)
BTW, if your keys are stored in a database, there's probably no need for them
to be PEM-encoded; you can save a bit of space and time by storing them in DER
format and calling d2i_PrivateKey() directly. (PEM format is more or less just
base64-encoded DER.) There's a FAQ entry on this:
http://www.openssl.org/support/faq.html#PROG3
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